Bad news:Hurricane Ivan devastates Grenada Storm strengthens as it heads for Jamaica
Wednesday, September 8, 2004 Posted: 12:50 PM EDT (1650 GMT)
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) -- Hurricane Ivan made a direct hit on Grenada with ferocious winds, killing three people as it collapsed concrete homes into piles of rubble and hurled the island's landmark red zinc roofs through the air.
The most powerful storm to hit the Caribbean in 14 years also damaged homes in Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and left thousands without water, electricity and telephone service, just days after Hurricane Frances rampaged through.
Ivan strengthened even as it was over Grenada on Tuesday, becoming a Category 4 storm and getting even more powerful as it headed across the Caribbean Sea, passing north of the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.
It is threatening to cross right over Jamaica by Friday morning or Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
"After Jamaica, it's probably going to hit somewhere in the U.S. unfortunately," Jennifer Pralgo, a meteorologist at the center, said Wednesday. "We're hoping it's not Florida again ..."
Another meteorologist there, Hugh Cobb, said Ivan terrorized Grenada for some two hours.
"They took a really bad beating," he said, warning "Whoever gets this, it's going to be bad."
Ivan's sustained winds were clocked at 120 mph (193 kph) as it raced through the Windward Islands. But it strengthened to 140 mph (220 kph) with gusts just over 160 mph (258 kph).
Howling winds raged through the hilly streets of St. George's, Grenada's capital, trashing concrete homes, uprooting trees and utility poles, and knocking out telephone service and electricity. The islands were cut off and transmission was halted from the Grenada Broadcast Network.
Several hundred people had been evacuated from low-lying areas of St. George's. ChevronTexaco said it evacuated nonessential staff from a natural gas well off Venezuela's Atlantic coast. Venezuela's government put the South American country's north coast on hurricane watch Tuesday night.
Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said his home has been flattened, Trinidadian leader Patrick Manning told reporters after a telephone conversation Tuesday night. Manning said Mitchell asked for help and promised to send Eastern Caribbean $10 million (US $3.7 million) in food and other aid.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency based in Barbados said Wednesday there were three deaths in Grenada, but that it had no details since it lost contact with Grenadian emergency officials Tuesday night.
It said St. George's "suffered incalculable damage" and Grenada's emergency disaster office, at the 19th century Great House at Mount Wheldale, was destroyed.
The Barbados agency said it was sending a relief team to Grenada and expected help from the British naval patrol boat HMS Richmond, currently deployed in the Caribbean.
St. George's main hospital also was damaged, the agency said, as were some shelters. "The population in public shelters is 1,000 and climbing," the agency said.
No news could be had from other islands in Grenada, which has about 100,000 residents and is best known for a 1983 U.S. invasion following a left-wing palace coup.
Two private boats near Grenada have sent out distress signals, the U.S. Coast Guard in San Juan, Puerto Rico, reported, but had no details. It said it was considering doing fly overs to assess damage in Grenada.
There were unconfirmed reports that storm damage allowed prisoners to escape Grenada's crumbling and overcrowded 17th century prison, a zinc-roofed stone edifice on a hilltop. For more than 20 years the prison has held former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard and 16 others convicted for killings in the coup.
Cobb said Ivan would be the first Category 4 storm to hit Caribbean islands since Hurricane Luis in 1990. He said that if Ivan hit Jamaica, it could be more destructive than Hurricane Gilbert, which was only Category 3 when it devastated the island in 1988.
Cobb said Ivan's heaviest rains, concentrated in its eastern sector, likely will sweep the southern peninsula of Haiti, where deforestation and shacks make any excessive rain a deadly force. Heavy rains in May triggered floods that killed some 1,700 people and left 1,600 missing and presumed dead in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic.
At 8 a.m. ET (1200 GMT), Hurricane Ivan was centered about 190 miles (310 kilometers) east of Bonaire. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 70 miles (110 kilometers) and tropical storm-force winds another 160 miles (260 kilometers). The storm riled up battering waves that the Hurricane Center warned could cause storm flooding of 3-5 feet (1-1.5 meters) above normal tides with 5-7 inches (13-18 centimeters) of rain that could cause flash floods and mudslides.
Earlier Tuesday, Ivan damaged 221 homes in Barbados and left many residents without water and electricity, the Caribbean disaster agency said. It had reports of one death in Barbados, but could not confirm it was hurricane-related. Power was being restored on the island Wednesday.
In neighboring St. Vincent and the Grenadines, more than 1,000 people are in shelters, 19 homes were destroyed when storm surges inundated coastal areas and another 40 homes were damaged, the agency reported. It said the country remained without electricity Wednesday.
A half dozen houses in St. Lucia and two schools in Tobago lost their roofs.
Airports, schools, government offices and most private businesses were closed on affected islands.
Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao were under hurricane warning, a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning remained posted for Colombia's Guajira peninsula and Venezuela's northern coast, and a tropical storm watch covered the southwest coast of the Dominican Republic.
Ivan became the fourth major hurricane of the season on Sunday, coming hard on the heels of Hurricane Frances, which killed at least two people in the Bahamas and 14 in the U.S. states of Florida and Georgia.
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