CAYMAN ISLANDS: Hurricane Ivan lashed the tiny Cayman Islands with ferocious winds and driving rain yesterday after devastating Jamaica and Grenada in a deadly trek through the Caribbean.
As its centre neared the Cayman Islands, a wealthy British territory of 45,000 people south of Cuba, Ivan's top sustained winds had decreased slightly, to 155 m.p.h, but it was still a very dangerous hurricane.
Ivan killed at least 16 people in Jamaica, its torrential rains triggering mudslides and washing out roads and its winds ripping off roofs on the island of 2.7 million people when it roared past on Friday night and Saturday. Ivan's eye was expected to pass over or near Grand Cayman yesterday, before heading for western Cuba today and then toward the US, where it could be the third hurricane to hit Florida in a month.
High winds hit the Caymans, a chain of three islands south of Cuba, late on Saturday, felling trees and power lines. Water washed over low-lying areas and there were reports of roofs being ripped away.
Water was waist-high in one spot half-a-mile inland on Grand Cayman, the largest of the islands and an important offshore finance centre. "It's pretty rough outside, pretty heavy winds, we figure in excess of 120 m.p.h," said Ms Joan Scott-Campbell of the Cayman's hurricane committee.
Ivan has killed at least 44 people on its march through the Caribbean. Many of the dead were on the tiny spice island of Grenada, where the Red Cross estimated two thirds of the population of 90,000 were made homeless when Ivan churned into the south-eastern Caribbean on Tuesday. There were at least 19 confirmed deaths and the toll was expected to rise.
In Jamaica, aid agencies and officials said they were still trying to find out what had happened in the south-eastern parishes of St Thomas, one of the hardest-hit areas, and St Elizabeth in the south-west, and hoped to clear blocked roads yesterday.
Cuba battened down for what could be the most powerful hurricane to hit the island in living memory and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes.
In the Cayman Islands, coastal dwellers fled to storm shelters to escape battering waves and a 15-foot storm surge. "We are looking at potentially catastrophic conditions," said Mr James Ryan, chairman of the Caymans hurricane committee. On Saturday, Ivan's top winds were reported at 165 m.p.h. It was the sixth strongest storm recorded in the Atlantic basin, according to the US National Hurricane Centre, and almost rivalled the destructive power of Hurricane Mitch, which killed 10,000 people in Central America in 1998.
Overnight, Ivan was downgraded to category four but it could strengthen again to a category five, the centre said.Forecasters could not say exactly where Ivan would hit in the US, but it appeared headed for Florida.