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Ivan Hits Jamaica; 50 Dead in Caribbean

Posted on: Saturday, 11 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

BULL BAY, Jamaica - Hurricane Ivan's monstrous waves and torrential rains smashed homes, uprooted trees and killed at least five people in Jamaica on Saturday, but a last-minute "wobble" spares the island the full force of the storm's 155-mph fury.

The course change could be good news for hurricane-fatigued Floridians, but people in the Cayman Islands and western Cuba braced for the worst as Ivan headed their way.

The total death toll from Ivan across the Caribbean rose to 50 after eight more bodies were found in Grenada, the former British colony that saw the most death and destruction when the hurricane swept through earlier.

Dazed Jamaicans stood in the rain Saturday morning and watched 25-foot waves crash onto beachfronts where a dozen houses used to stand at Harbour View, just east of Kingston, the capital. Associated Press reporters saw looters carrying boxes of groceries from a smashed storefront in Kingston.

RJR Radio reported that a 10-year-old girl drowned in Old Harbour, just east of the capital, and a woman was fatally struck by a tree that crashed into her Kingston home, said Ronald Jackson of Jamaica's disaster relief agency.

A man, a woman and a baby also drowned in Clarendon parish, just west of Kingston, according to reports from residents, citing police.

Jamaica, an island of 2.6 million known for its beaches, reggae and Blue Mountain coffee, was saved from a direct hit when the hurricane unexpectedly wobbled and lurched to the west. Still, it was ravaged by winds just below the 155-mph mark that would make the storm a Category 5, the most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Forecasters warned Ivan could still move back to its predicted course and hit Florida, where the Keys were mostly boarded up, deserted by evacuating residents and tourists told days ago to prepare for Ivan, which came hard on the heels of Charley and Frances.

At 2 p.m. EDT, the hurricane's winds were down to 145 mph and it was centered about 40 miles southwest of Jamaica's western tip and 170 miles southeast of Grand Cayman island. Hurricane-force winds extended 45 miles and tropical storm-force winds another 175 miles.

Meteorologists expected the storm to move near or over the Cayman Islands on Sunday and warned it could strengthen.

The Cayman government posted a hurricane warning and urged residents to prepare for a possible direct impact. Cuba on Saturday upgraded a hurricane watch to a warning for the threatened western part of the island.

Residents of Cojimar, Cuba, a seaside community once frequented by Ernest Hemingway, cut down trees, boarded up windows and prayed in anticipation of the storm.

"If God doesn't help us, I think this is going to be extremely tragic," said Maria del Carmen Boza, a 65-year-old retiree waiting to buy crackers and canned food at a small corner store. "All of Cuba is worried, this looks like it's going to be really dangerous."

National radio exhorted Cubans to "put into practice the solidarity that characterizes our nation" by inviting neighbors in vulnerable homes to pass the hurricane in more stable buildings. More than 170,000 people across the island were evacuated by Saturday morning.

With Ivan passing away from Jamaica's western edge, residents emerged to view the damage. At Caribbean Terraces, a middle-class seaside community at Jamaica's Harbour View, a foot of mud and sand caked the floors of homes that withstood the storm.

The street ran with floodwaters carrying splintered wood, cracked television sets, twisted air conditioning units and shredded clothing.

Looters took all the electrical appliances Owen Brown had stowed on an upper story of his five-bedroom home, but they left the storm-battered red sedan in his garage.

"They left me with absolutely nothing," said Brown, 50, adding he was "shell-shocked" when he returned home after working through the night as a radio broadcaster.

Next door, Joy Powell clutched a red shower curtain as if it were a security blanket as she stood in what used to be her living room - in knee-deep, muddy water floating with debris.

"The only thing I was able to save was one shower curtain," she said. "Everything else is completely gone."

In downtown Kingston, 20-foot high trees were uprooted, some flung onto the roofs of cars and twisted metal roof panels were strewn in the streets.

"I'd say we have been spared the worst but we're not out of the woods yet," Jackson said in the morning, when sheets of rain were lashing the island and winds bent palm trees to a 45-degree angle.

Officials were trying to clear the road to reach the cutoff eastern parish of St. Thomas, believed to be the hardest hit, Jackson said.

Along the road to the airport - a muddy river filled with refrigerators, downed trees, traffic lights and utility poles - a dozen police officers kneeled behind their car with assault rifles at the ready. They said they were in the middle of a shootout, it was not clear with whom.

Jamaica had not been hit by a major storm since Hurricane Gilbert struck in 1988, killing dozens of people and inflicted massive damages as a Category 3 storm.

In Montego Bay, disaster relief officials said it was too dangerous to assess damage Saturday morning, but dozens of people had reported roofs torn from their homes. "Things are still flying in the air," said disaster relief coordinator Faye Headley.

Hundreds of stranded tourists were joyous at the relative reprieve given by Ivan. "We are so lucky," said Petra Hauser, 35, of Aarau, Switzerland, who'd spent two days in a hotel lobby.

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, which was left a wasteland of flattened houses.

The U.S. State Department was arranging for the evacuations of all Americans who wish to leave hard-hit Grenada. The first plane left for Trinidad on Saturday carrying 49 people, said Consul General Bob Fretz of the U.S. Embassy in Barbados.

East of Jamaica, in impoverished Haiti, the extreme edge of Ivan's raging winds destroyed 68 homes and damaged dozens more. Much of Les Cayes, a city of 300,000 on the southwest peninsula, was under water up to knee deep in surrounding banana fields.

Ivan has been blamed for the deaths of 34 people in Grenada, five in Jamaica, five in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, and four youngsters in the Dominican Republic.

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Associated Press reporters Vanessa Arrington in Cojimar, Cuba; 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

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