Posted on 07/08/2005 12:54:18 PM PDT by phoenix_004
Hurricane Dennis stalked Cuba's southern coast before making landfall Friday as it aimed to slice across the Caribbean's largest island, packing 145 mph (235 kph) winds capable of catastrophic damage that sent thousands fleeing the Florida Keys and raised fears of more disruption to U.S. oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Winds and heaving surf tossed a lifeguard tower into the sea and roared over a razor-wire fence at the U.S. detention camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, on the island's eastern end.
An evacuation order was in effect in the Florida Keys, where officials feared Dennis would skirt or hit the island chain on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Tornadoes could develop there, the U.S. Hurricane Center said Friday afternoon.
A Category 4 storm that strengthened Friday to 150 mph (240 kph) winds before weakening slightly, Dennis killed five people in Haiti, stranded tens of thousands, collapsed bridges, triggered landslides, inundated homes and blocked roads with downed power lines and trees in Haiti and Jamaica.
The eye made landfall on central Cuba's southern coast a second time shortly before 2 p.m. (1800GMT) Friday near Cienfuegos, Cuba, about 125 miles (205 kilometers) southeast of Havana, the Hurricane Center in Miami said. Overnight, Dennis crossed a sparsely populated Cuban cape at Cabo Cruz jutting out far west.
Hurricane-force winds extended 50 miles (85 kilometers) with tropical storm force winds stretching another 160 miles (260 kilometers). Dennis was moving northwest near 17 mph (27 kph).
The first hurricane of the season sideswiped Haiti's southwestern peninsula and Jamaica's south and east coasts Thursday and dumped rain on the Dominican Republic.
In Jamaica, a rescue helicopter was to airlift food and emergency supplies to hundreds of stranded islanders in at least seven eastern towns cut off by knee-deep floodwaters, said Nadene Newsome, spokeswoman for the country's emergency management office.
"Flooding has affected every parish of the island and it will increase as long as the rain continues throughout the day" Friday, she said.
Forecasters predict the storm will intensify and hit the United States anywhere from Florida to Louisiana by Sunday or Monday, the fourth storm in as many weeks to disrupt oil production.
The Cayman Islands, spared from a direct hit by the storm's overnight turn to the west, downgraded its hurricane warning Friday to a tropical storm watch.
Also spared overnight was the U.S. detention camp on Cuba's extreme southeast end, holding about 520 terror suspects.
Heaving surf tore away a lifeguard tower at Windmill Beach and storm force winds reaching 40 mph (65 kilometers) destroyed a bus shelter. A few power lines and tree branches were knocked down and there was minor flooding.
"Actually, everybody fared real well," said Navy Cmdr. Anne Reese.
On Thursday, troops watched from a cliff as the churning Atlantic Ocean threw up massive waves of salt spray that towered over the razor wire fence surrounding the camp at Guantanamo Bay.
The troops fixed metal shutters over the steel mesh windows of some prison cells overlooking the sea at Camp Delta, which is just 150 yards (meters) from the ocean.
Hurricane Center forecasters warned Cuba's southeast Sierra Maestra Mountains could get up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain, with about 10 inches (25 centimeters) falling on Jamaica's coffee-producing Blue Mountains.
In Haiti, a bus that had been carrying 40 passengers lay sideways on the road from the southwestern town of Les Cayes and the capital of Port-au-Prince. The vehicle flipped onto its side Thursday because the driver could not see through heavy rain, said 55-year-old passenger Adner Arius. He said three people, including the driver and a child, were hurt.
At least a dozen houses along the road were flooded.
Government officials were trying to determine how many people were killed or hurt when a bridge collapsed further up the same road in the town of Grand Goave, cutting off Haiti's southwestern peninsula.
An Associated Press Television Reporter saw at least four people die when the wooden and metal bridge collapsed. Rescue workers were searching for missing people and feared the toll could be higher, the government said in a statement read by Radio Metropole.
Elsewhere on the deforested island, wind gusts uprooted a palm tree and flung it into a mud hut, killing a fifth person in the southern town of Les Cayes, the Red Cross said.
Floodwaters rose to waist level in an abandoned church in Les Cayes and nearly reached a table where 63-year-old Eloge Larame lay down, ill. His family of five stood on chairs, their feet still in water.
Wind gusts ripped tin roofs from homes and whipped sheets of rain that flooded roads.
In Jamaica, floods and debris blocked the road leading from the capital, Kingston, to the storm-battered east around Yallahs town.
A man there narrowly escaped from a car swept away by fast-flowing floodwater on Wednesday night, a day before the hurricane passed.
In Cuba's southern city of Cienfuegos, expected to bear much of the storm's brunt, residents rushed Friday morning to board up windows with anything to hand: plywood, metal sheeting - even cardboard.
"Every time hurricanes pass through, we suffer because we are at the southernmost point," said Antonio Leonardo. "With a hurricane as strong as this one, there's a lot of fear of losing one's home."
Residents fled the city on bicycle and on foot, some carrying pet dogs. Long lines formed at gas stations and at government ration centers distributing bread.
Cuba evacuated more than 100,000 people from the southeast on Thursday, civil defense officials said. Hundreds of tourists were taken to hotels in Havana and northern Varadero beach resort.
Thousands of students at government boarding schools were sent home, and livestock moved to higher ground.
The largest and most populous Caribbean island with 11.2 million people, Cuba suffers few hurricane casualties because the government cautiously evacuates people en masse, sometimes forcefully.
The hurricane center's lead forecaster, Martin Nelson, said it was the first time the Atlantic hurricane season had four named storms this early since record-keeping began in 1851. The season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
Last year, four catastrophic hurricanes - Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - tore through the Caribbean with a collective ferocity not seen in years, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.
Hope no one spilled their orange-glazed chicken.
I hope that didn't fall on anyone's Koran.
"Topples Guard Tower at Guantanamo Base"
The will of Allah.
Maybe we'll get lucky and some of the galvanized steel will come flying off the buildings and lop off the heads of some of the terrorists down there. That would be tragic...
There is a life guard tower at Club Gitmo? Is it next to the tennis courts?
Now all the detainees can be shot "trying to escape".
Show them this headline:
Topples Guard Tower at Guantanamo Base
If he/she responds "Oh no, was a guard in it at the time?!": Republican
If the response is "Were any prisoners crushed?"...
LifeGuard tower at Club Gitmo.
I just hope they give the detainees ziploc bags for their Koran or were going to catch hell from the dummycrats.
A co-worker's daughter is stationed at Gitmo. I discovered she (the co-worker) was a liberal when she expressed her concern about her daughter being there during the hurricane, and I replied that if all else fails, they could rope the prisoners together and build a raft...
It would be a shame if some bullets were to get caught up in a strong wind and be propelled through some of these Gitmo terrorists.
The guards should have fed some of the human vermin to the sharks and blame the hurricane.
Hope the GITMO guards open the doors while Dennis is passing over and take those islamic murderers flying out the doors to NeverNeverland.
The Navy base at Gitmo has been there since long before there was ever a terrorist prison. It is normal and quite proper for there to be recreational facilities for the sailors who are stationed there.
There is a life guard tower at Club Gitmo? Is it next to the tennis courts?
No, it's across from the polo fields.
Hmm. I became rather intoxicated during a cookout our ship had on that beach during quals at Gitmo...I don't remember it well.
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