Extremely dangerous' hurricane Gustav blasts Cuba - Sat Aug 30,
HAVANA (AFP) - Hurricane Gustav blasted into western Cuba as an "extremely dangerous" category 4 storm Saturday, threatening mass destruction as US forecasters warned it could intensify to a maximum category five superstorm as it heads towards Louisiana.
Gustav roared over Cuba's low-lying Isle of Youth, where 200,000 people live, and threatened to inundate historical Havana before moving into the Gulf of Mexico.
Cuba evacuated nearly 200,000 people in the western province of Pinar del Rio, and thousands more in the capital of Havana.
Some 1,200 foreign tourists were evacuated from the resort region of Varadero 150 kilometers east of Havana as well.
In the nearly abandoned town of Batabano on the south coast, Roberto Garcia, 61, was loading furniture onto a tractor .
"I came here to pick up my daughter because in this area the flooding can get up to your chest," Garcia told AFP.
In Havana there were long lines at shops as people rushed to stock up on food, water and other supplies, but many shops were shut ahead of the storm's arrival.
The airport was shut down on the Isle of Youth and boat traffic suspended ahead of landfall.
The NHC warned that tides in Cuba could surge as much as 5.8 meters (19 feet) above normal in areas under the eye of the storm.
It said the storm, which has killed at least 81 people in the Caribbean, could expand to a top-level category five storm as it passes western Cuba and heads into the Gulf of Mexico on a track for the Louisiana coast, almost exactly three years after New Orleans was devastated by mega-storm Katrina.
"We do forecast it to reach Category 5. But whether it is a Category 4 or 5, it is extremely dangerous either way," NHC forecaster Chris Landsea told AFP by phone.
Mandatory evacuations were underway in coastal areas from northwest Cuba to Louisiana in the United States, where Gustav was predicted make landfall Monday or early Tuesday.
Roads out of New Orleans were jammed with people fleeing a potentially disastrous strike on the city just three years after Katrina left some 1,800 dead along the coast.
Major oil producers BP, ConocoPhillips and Shell on Thursday evacuated workers from their facilities in the gulf where nearly a quarter of US crude oil installations are located.
Early Saturday, a Caymans official reported heavy damage from Gustav on Cayman Brac, the large eastern island of the Caymans group, with power and water supplies down.
"We're hoping that it's going to settle down enough that we can do some damage assessment," said Ernie Scott, District Commissioner of the Sister Islands.
"I'm expecting the HMS Iron Duke early and they're going to be providing significant assistance in our damage assessment operations," he said, referring to the British Royal Navy frigate in the area.
Hundreds of people fled into shelters on Grand and Little Cayman islands as some areas were affected by flooding.
Earlier this week Gustav left a path of destruction through Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica, killing at least 81 people.
In Haiti, it left 66 dead plus 10 missing. In the neighboring Dominican Republic, the death toll stood at eight.
And in Jamaica the toll was seven, with many thousands displaced.
Although the heaviest of the rains had subsided, many Jamaicans worried about returning home. "It is all wet and I am afraid to sleep inside there," said Kingston housewife Charlene Markland.
Anxiety meanwhile grew on the US Gulf Coast over Gustav's trajectory, with New Orleans beginning mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas Saturday.
Meanwhile another tropical storm in the Atlantic well north of Puerto Rico, dubbed Hannah, was forecast to head to the west and strike the central Bahamas by Tuesday and then travel directly toward central Cuba. --
New Orleans mayor orders evacuation starting Sunday - Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:08am ED -
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