Jeanne Plows Into the Dominican Republic

SAMANA, Dominican Republic – Hurricane Jeanne plowed into the Dominican Republic Thursday, killing a baby and forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. The storm unleashed floods and left two dead a day earlier in Puerto Rico.

Jeanne made landfall at the island’s evacuated eastern tip and weakened to a tropical storm as it raked the north coast. But it was expected to regain hurricane strength and likely head for the Bahamas and then Florida, Georgia or the Carolinas.

“We can’t really say for sure whether it’s going to ease up to the north on the Florida coast or continue more westward over Florida,” said Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. “People need to monitor it very carefully.”

Jeanne’s heavy rains reached to the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, where a 4-month-old child died when a landslide crushed part of her family’s house, said Jose Luis German, spokesman for the National Emergency Committee.

At least eight people were injured as trees toppled and floods struck parts of the east and northeast, officials said. Crashing waves pounded the north coast, along with high winds that knocked over palm trees.

Telephone service and electricity were out in some areas. Some airline flights were canceled.

“We’re all afraid,” said Julie Acosta, 17, helping her father tie down their tin roof with rope as winds and rain intensified around Samana, a coastal town popular with European tourists about 60 miles northeast of Santo Domingo.

More than 8,200 Dominicans were evacuated and took refuge in shelters set up in schools and churches, officials said.

“I had to come here because at night this becomes scary,” said Mario Vasquez, a 40-year-old farmer crowded with 150 people into a school in blacked-out Samana. “People could die out here.”

Beachside hotels and restaurants closed along the north coast, while authorities ordered boats into port.

Jeanne hit the Dominican Republic with 80 mph winds before dropping 70 mph, just shy of hurricane strength.

The storm raged across Puerto Rico on Wednesday, dumping up to two feet of rain, flooding hundreds of homes, snapping trees and downing power lines.

“It left a wake of destruction that we now have to face,” Puerto Rico’s Gov. Sila Calderon said Thursday. She asked President Bush to declare a disaster to speed the release of federal aid.

About 3,600 Puerto Ricans remained in shelters Thursday, dozens of roads were blocked, most of the 4 million islanders were without power and some 600,000 without running water for a second day, Calderon said.

One Puerto Rican woman was killed Wednesday when winds flung her from a hammock and smashed her into a neighbor’s house, and a man putting up storm shutters died when he fell from a roof, police said.

At 8 p.m., Jeanne’s eye was over the northeast Dominican Republic, about 65 miles northeast of Santo Domingo. The storm was drifting, with storm-force winds stretched out 70 miles, and expected to remain near the Dominican coast through Friday. A slow west-northwest turn was expected in 12-24 hours.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, debris littered streets and some residents shoveled mud from homes. Two prisoners escaped from a St. Croix jail during the storm, though it was unclear how, police said.

Heavy rains continued to soak parts of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, threatening flashfloods and mudslides. Landslides have caused a large amount of damage to the exotic vegetation in the Caribbean National Forest, a rain forest known as “El Yunque,” supervisor Pabo Cruz said.

A hurricane warning was posted for the southeastern Bahamas and the British Turks and Caicos Islands, and a watch for the central Bahamas – an area still recovering from Hurricane Frances. Haiti’s north coast was under a storm warning.

Jeanne brewed in the Caribbean the same day Hurricane Ivan, leaving at least 70 dead across the Caribbean – including 39 in Grenada and 16 in Jamaica – before slamming into the U.S. Gulf Coast Thursday.

The Cayman Islands government reported its first storm-related death from Ivan Thursday.

“We have been severly hit, and we are pulling ourselves out,” said McKeeva Bush, government leader of the wealthy British territory. “We still need aid.”

He said 20 percent of homes were “totally demolished” and that most had some damage.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Javier with 110 mph winds swirled in the Pacific about 200 miles off Mexico but was weakening and wasn’t expected to cause serious problems on land.

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Associated Press reporters Manuel Ernesto Rivera in Puerto Rico, Stevenson Jacobs in Jamaica, and Mat Probasco and Steve Bullock in the U.S. Virgin Islands contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical