Jamaica Possibly Spared Ivan’s Worst Fury

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Hurricane Ivan lashed Jamaica with giant waves and winds nearing 155 mph early Saturday, but as panicked residents braced for a direct hit, the storm unexpectedly wobbled and lurched west, possibly sparing the island the worst of its fury.

The change in course could be good news for hurricane-weary Florida, since Ivan may now head off into the Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters warned it could still move back to its predicted course and hit the state.

The death toll from Ivan rose to 37, the latest victim an 8-year-old boy who died Friday of head injuries sustained when the storm destroyed his home in Grenada on Tuesday. Grenada’s capital, St. George’s, was hit hard and thousands of people were left homeless.

Sporadic gunfire and looting was reported in Jamaica’s crime-ridden capital, Kingston, but police could not confirm that and the telephone service appeared to fail as Ivan passed. Troops on high alert and carrying assault rifles patrolled the darkened city, its electricity cut to protect power plants.

The storm’s winds were just below the 155 mark that would make it a Category 5, the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The panicked capital appeared to get a minor reprieve when Ivan shifted course, though Jamaica was still battered by hurricane-force winds.

Ivan’s eye “wobbled toward the west for the past few hours,” bringing it within 35 miles of Kingston but keeping it off the island, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

“They did get very extreme winds and there’s still going to be a lot of damage, but the 155-mph winds passed south of Jamaica and did not make landfall,” said Jennifer Pralgo, a meteorologist at the center.

Pralgo said Ivan still could return to a projected path that would take it over the smaller of the Cayman Islands, across western Cuba and into the heart of southern Florida. As of now, it was still expected to hit Cuba.

“We’re going to have to wait and see,” she said. “It may come back to course.”

At 8 a.m. EDT, Ivan was centered just off the southwest coast of Jamaica and heading west-northwest near 8 mph, heading toward the Cayman Islands. Hurricane-force winds extended 45 miles and tropical storm-force winds another 175 miles.

The Cayman government posted a hurricane warning and urged residents of all three of its islands to prepare for a possible direct impact. Cuba declared a hurricane watch Friday.

In South Florida, long lines reappeared at gas stations and shoppers swarmed home building stores and supermarkets as residents braced for a third hurricane following Charley and Frances. Before Ivan’s move west, forecasters were saying Ivan could tear through the Keys as early as Monday.

Howling winds and sheets of horizontal rain crashed around Kingston in the south after Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson declared a state of emergency and pleaded with the half million people considered in danger – about one in five islanders – to get to shelters. Most refused for fear abandoned homes would be robbed.

“I’m not saying I’m not afraid for my life but we’ve got to stay here and protect our things,” said Lorna Brown, 49, pointing to a stove, television, cooking utensils and large bed crowded into a one-room concrete home on the beach at the northwestern resort of Montego Bay.

Earlier, awed onlookers stood transfixed on the seaside Palisadoes Highway near Kingston’s airport as 23-foot waves crashed to shore, thrusting rocks and dead tree branches more than 100 feet into the road.

“I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said businessman Chester Pinnock, huddled under an umbrella against drenching rain.

“This is going to be disastrous. We could have hundreds dead. Hurricane Gilbert was a puppy compared to this,” he said.

Gilbert, the last major storm to strike Jamaica, killed dozens of people and inflicted massive damages as a Category 3 storm in 1988.

But only 5,000 people moved into shelters, emergency management director Barbara Carby said.

In Montego Bay, the Barnett River overflowed its banks, putting some businesses four feet under water and flooding inland roads and farmlands. Drenching rain washed away the main northern coastal road, the A1, just outside Montego Bay.

The British Royal Navy frigate HMS Richmond, which rushed to Grenada’s rescue Wednesday, was speeding to Jamaica along with a supply ship, Commander Mike MacCartain told the BBC.

In Haiti, east of Jamaica, flooding destroyed at least two houses and damaged a dozen more, but people expressed relief they were spared further catastrophe in a year that has already brought a bloody rebellion and deadly floods.

“First we had a political hurricane, then an economic hurricane and now, with the natural hurricane, we’re just glad God saved us,” said Jude Vante, 32, an unemployed mason in low-lying Les Cayes, on the southern peninsula.

Ivan became the fourth major hurricane of the Atlantic Season on Sunday. It damaged dozens of homes in Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent Tuesday before making a direct hit on Grenada.

Grenada suffered the worst damage. The storm damaged 90 percent of homes there, tossed sailboats to shore and set off looting among some of the 100,000 residents left without electricity, water and telephone service.

Amid the looting, the American Red Cross disaster unit said Grenada’s government has temporarily closed the country to relief shipments to ensure security. The unit’s director, Doug Allen, said Grenada needs relief by Sunday to avoid a critical situation.

More than 100 Caribbean soldiers from five countries arrived Thursday to help restore order on the island of 100,000.

On Friday, Trinidadian troops patrolled the marina and shopping area around the downtown Carenage, and police Superintendent Edvin Martin reported only scattered looting.

Up to 75 convicts remained at large after about 150 of the prison’s 325 inmates escaped when the storm damaged the prison.

Troops from Barbados and Trinidad guarded Grenada’s airport, where dozens of American medical students waited for chartered flights home. An estimated 1,000 U.S. citizens are on the island, most medical students at St. George’s University.

Ivan has killed 26 people in Grenada, five in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, and four youngsters in the Dominican Republic.

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Associated Press reporters Ian James, Harold Quash and Loren Brown in Grenada, Peter Prengaman in Jamaica, Jose Monegro in Dominican Republic, Amy Bracken in Haiti and Tony Fraser in Trinidad contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical