Hurricane Dean Tears Through Caribbean
CASTRIES, St. Lucia - Hurricane Dean tore through the eastern Caribbean islands of St. Lucia and Martinique on Friday, ripping roofs from buildings, downing trees and knocking out power.
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Airports were closed, coastal hotels were evacuated and tourists hunkered down in shelters as 100 mph winds swept over the islands. The Category 2 storm was headed to Jamaica and by next week, when it is projected to reach Mexico''s Yucatan Peninsula and Central America, it could strengthen into a dangerous Category 4 hurricane.
The eye of Dean, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, passed between St. Lucia and Martinique, which are less than 50 miles apart, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The winds tore off the roof of the children''s ward at Victoria Hospital in Castries, the capital of St. Lucia. The patients had been evacuated and no injuries were reported.
St. Lucia state radio reported that flooding and wind-blown debris had turned the capital into "a total mess." Boulders that had been part of a sea wall were shoved onto roads by the force of storm surges. A boat also sat in the road, lifted off from the sea by the storm.
Radio and television advisories urged people to stock up on canned food and fill their cars with gasoline. Volunteers knocked on doors to make sure people knew about the storm.
With utility poles downed, the power company turned off electricity on the island to prevent anyone from being electrocuted.
At 8 a.m. EDT, Dean was centered about 50 miles west-southwest of Martinique and moving west at about 23 mph.
"We don''t have a roof ... everything is exposed. We tried to save what we could," said Josephine Marcelus, a resident of Morne Rouge, a town in northern Martinique. "We sealed ourselves in one room, praying that the hurricane stops blowing over Martinique."
"I saw the roof of a municipal building fly off. This is a very hard thing to experience right now," said Louis Joseph Manscour, deputy mayor of Trinite on Martinique.
Laurent Bigot, director of a crisis team on the French island, warned people to stay inside.
It was too early to tell whether the storm would strike the United States, but officials were gearing up for the possibility. Texas was already dealing with the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin, which dropped up to 7 inches of rain in parts of San Antonio and Houston. Officials throughout central and southern Texas braced for 10 inches to 15 inches by Friday morning.
At least four people died Thursday in Erin''s thunderstorms.
Shell Oil Co. evacuated 188 people this week from offshore facilities in Erin''s path and said Thursday that it was monitoring Dean.
Martinique officials set up cots at schoolhouse shelters while residents lined up at gas stations and emptied supermarket shelves.
"It''s the first time I''ve seen this, all our water supply completely gone in less than two hours," said Jean Claude, a supermarket manager.
The National Hurricane Center said Dean would likely be a Category 3 hurricane by the time it reaches the central Caribbean. Forecasters said it appeared Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands would be spared the brunt of Dean''s winds.
Dean could get closer to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola. As it approaches Mexico''s Yucatan Peninsula and Central America on Tuesday it could be a Category 4 hurricane, the hurricane center said. But forecasters always warn that their intensity predictions can be inaccurate that far in advance.
Forecasters predicted storm surge flooding at 2 to 4 feet above normal tide levels near the center of Dean as it passes over the Lesser Antilles and total possible rainfalls of 10 inches in mountainous areas.
At 8 a.m. EDT, hurricane warnings were in effect for the islands of St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica and Guadeloupe.
Tropical storm warnings have been issued for the U.S. Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and St. Maarten and Grenada. The warnings were canceled for Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
On Dominica, just north of Martinique, winds that howled through groves and homes damaged much of the banana crop, one of the island''s main exports.
A hurricane watch was issued for the southern coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
About 300 American medical students from Dominica''s Ross University arrived in Puerto Rico after their families hired private planes, said Dr. Mauricio Gomez, from the UCLA Medical Center in California, whose fiancee was among the students.
At the Jungle Bay Resort & Spa, on Dominica''s Atlantic coast, about 18 guests spent Thursday night in a reinforced steel-and-concrete shelter, hotel spokeswoman Laura Ell said.
"Everyone''s very calm but taking it seriously," she said.
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