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Powerful Hurricane Emily blasts past Jamaica

Posted on: Saturday, 16 July 2005, 19:55 CDT

By Horace Helps

KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) - Hurricane Emily, carrying top winds of up to 155 mph (248 kph), roared past Jamaica on Saturday, hammering the Caribbean island with torrential rains and headed for the popular vacation resorts on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

Emily's power was on the verge of making it a rare Category 5 storm on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity, one capable of destroying buildings.

On its current track, the hurricane would slam into the palm-fringed Yucatan coast late on Sunday or early Monday, forecasters predicted.

Hotels in the area recommended guests cut short their vacations and return home, and authorities prepared emergency shelters with space for tens of thousands of people.

Jamaica was spared a direct hit from Emily. But although the hurricane's powerful center stayed in the Caribbean Sea more than 100 miles off Jamaica's southern coast, the storm was large and strong enough to trigger flooding and mudslides on the island, home to about 2.6 million people.

The hurricane cut power to some 70,000 homes, flooded several homes and roads, and washed away seven houses, two of them from one village in the eastern parish of St. Mary, officials said.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries.

At 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT), the center of Emily was moving away from Jamaica. It was located about 140 miles southwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica and was moving to the west-northwest at about 18 mph (29 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Forecasters said Emily would skirt the Cayman Islands, a tiny British colony, before pushing across the Caribbean and striking Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday.

In Jamaica, thousands of people had vacated their homes in flood-prone areas to schools and churches on Friday as hundreds of soldiers and police took to the streets to deter looters. The island's main airports in Kingston and Montego Bay were closed.

TOURISTS PACK THEIR BAGS

In the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, Governor Felix Gonzalez told reporters that of 130,000 tourists holidaying in the state, 30,000 left on Saturday and another 40,000 were due to leave on Sunday.

Along the coast, fishing communities were evacuated, shop windows were boarded up and locals stocked up on food and gasoline. Around Cancun, schools and sports centers were turned into emergency shelters for up to 40,000 people.

Thousands of troops were drafted to help with evacuation or rescue drills.

State oil monopoly Pemex said it had shut off 63 oil wells in the southern Gulf of Mexico, west of Yucatan, and was evacuating some 15,000 nonessential workers from its rigs. The closures will hold back roughly a quarter of daily output.

Pemex, a major supplier to the United States, had not canceled any oil shipments however, a spokeswoman said.

Jamaica was side-swiped by Emily as it tallied damage from Hurricane Dennis, which killed one person when it swept along the northern shore on July 7. Dennis also killed 70 people in Haiti, Cuba and the United States.

Forecasters predicted Emily could drop 5 to 8 inches (13-20 cm) of rain on Jamaica and as much as 15 inches (38 cm) in the mountains.

The National Hurricane Committee in the Cayman Islands warned the colony's 45,000 residents to be ready for as much as 8 inches (20 cm) of rain and waves up to 12 feet high along the south coast of Grand Cayman.

Few hurricanes reach Category 5 status, with winds over 155 mph (250 kph).

Hurricane Andrew, which hit southern Florida in 1992 and became the most expensive storm in U.S. history with more than $25 billion in damage, was a Category 5 with winds of 170 mph (275 kph). So too was Hurricane Mitch, which in 1998 had 180 mph(290 kph) winds at its peak. It killed more than 9,000 people in Central America. (Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer in Mexico City and Anahi Rama in Cancun, Mexico)

Source: REUTERS

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