Hurricane Emily bashes southeast Caribbean islands

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (Reuters) – Two houses collapsed
and a dozen lost roofs as Hurricane Emily ripped past Trinidad
and Tobago on Thursday, where it flooded roads, toppled trees
and knocked out power.

The growing storm, with 90 mph (145 kph) winds, also
pounded nearby Grenada, where residents were still trying to
rebuild from the devastation of Hurricane Ivan last September.

In energy-rich Trinidad and Tobago, rivers in the capital,
Port of Spain, and in central Trinidad, broke their banks as
Emily dropped up to 8 inches (20 cm) of rain along its path
through the Windward Islands.

“At this point, we are flooded out by reports of flood all
over the place,” said Myron Chin, director of the Office of
Disaster Preparedness and Management. No injuries were
reported.

At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), the center of Emily was about 85
miles west-northwest of Grenada and moving to the
west-northwest at about 18 mph (29 kph), the U.S. National
Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Emily blossomed quickly on Wednesday from a tropical storm
into a hurricane and forecasters said they expected it to
strengthen further in the next day or so.

The hurricane center’s long-range forecast had Emily racing
across the Caribbean Sea north of the Netherlands Antilles over
the next two days. It would skirt Jamaica’s south coast on
Saturday and hit Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula late on Sunday.

Emily’s passage near Grenada piled on the misery for the
90,000 residents of the spice island, where Ivan caused about
$2.2 billion in damage last September, more than double
Grenada’s annual economic output.

The storm damaged or destroyed 90 percent of the housing
stock and many people are still doing repairs.

Storm warnings were in effect for the Dutch islands of
Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao and the northern coast of Venezuela
from Pedernales to Punto Fijo.

Venezuela’s oil operations were unscathed as the storm
passed to the north, oil officials and shipping sources said.

BP continued working to right its $1 billion Thunder Horse
platform, which had been discovered listing after Hurricane
Dennis passed through the Gulf of Mexico last weekend. Emily,
however, was not forecast to venture near the area.

Forecasters said a tropical storm watch could be issued
later on Thursday for the south coast of Hispaniola, the island
shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Hurricane Dennis killed at least 44 people in Haiti last
week during a trek through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico
in which more than 70 people died. The toll included 16 in
Cuba, one in Jamaica and ten in the United States.