Hurricane Dennis threatens Guantanamo Bay

Hurricane Dennis flooded roads in Haiti and threatened a direct hit on Jamaica, pushing oil prices sharply higher and becoming the second storm to threaten oil output in the Gulf of Mexico.

A hurricane warning was posted for eastern Cuba including the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, where some 520 terror suspects are detained. Forecasters also warned Dennis was on track for the Alabama-Florida coastline.

Some rural Jamaicans were cut off by floodwaters hours before the storm was to pass, and authorities planned to fly over the affected south-east area in a helicopter to search for stranded islanders.

Rain lashed Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, flooding the road connecting the city to its international airport, which was closed down.

Coming right behind Tropical Storm Cindy, which made landfall late Tuesday in Louisiana and caused refinery power cuts, uncertainty over a more menacing Dennis lifted oil prices to record highs on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dennis, the fourth storm of the Atlantic season, became the first hurricane when it strengthened to a Category 1 storm yesterday with winds nearing 80mph.

It is threatening to hit Jamaica as a Category 2, with winds above 96 mph, the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said.

Dennis could dump up to 12 inches of rain over high land including Jamaica’s coffee-producing Blue Mountains, according to the Hurricane Centre.

At 6am Irish time today, the storm was centred about 160 miles south-east of Kingston, Jamaica, moving west-north-west near 15 mph, the Hurricane Centre said.

Hurricane warnings were posted yesterday for Jamaica, Haiti’s south-west peninsula and eastern Cuba. A hurricane watch was in effect for Cayman Islands.

The Dominican Republic lifted a tropical storm watch for its south coast, but the Hurricane Centre warned that strong squalls were expected last night. “That was their decision. I tried to discourage them,” Stacey Stewart, a hurricane specialist with the centre, said.

Meteorologist Chris Hennon said the quadrant threatening Haiti “is typically the worst part of the storm” in terms of wind strength and rains.

Radio stations in Haiti and Jamaica warned people to stay away from rivers that could overflow their banks. Some southern roads in Haiti, which is dangerously deforested, already were blocked by flooding Wednesday.

Poverty-stricken Haitians said there was little they could do about the warnings.

“It’s not only that we don’t have money to prepare, we don’t have money either to eat. We are willing to stay here and let whatever happens happen,” said Martine Louis-Pierre, a 43-year-old mother of three selling fried food on a street of Port-au-Prince.

At Guantanamo Bay, the military prepared audio tapes in at least eight languages warning that a storm was coming and heavy steel shutters would be closed on some cell windows, said Col. Mike Bumgarner.

Military officials had no immediate plans to evacuate troops or detainees at Camp Delta, which is about 150 yards from the ocean, but was built to withstand winds up to 90mph, according to Navy Cmdr. Anne Reese.