25604: (news) Chamberlain: Hurricane-Dennis (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By LEONARDO ALDRIDGE

   LES CAYES, Haiti, July 7 (AP) -- Hurricane Dennis dumped inches of rain
on Haiti and looked ready to strike Jamaica on Thursday, and forecasters
predicted the storm would strengthen before making landfall. Hurricane
warnings were also posted in Cuba, including at the U.S. Navy base at
Guantanamo Bay.
   Dennis strengthened into a hurricane Wednesday, becoming the second
storm to threaten petroleum output in the Gulf of Mexico. It flooded roads
and burst river banks in Haiti, and forecasters said the storm could strike
the United States anywhere from Florida to Louisiana.
   Dennis came right behind Tropical Storm Cindy, which made landfall late
Tuesday in Louisiana and hindered oil production and refining. Traders said
that uncertainty over both storms helped to push oil prices to new highs.
   Packing sustained winds near 90 mph, the fourth storm of the Atlantic
season -- and its first hurricane -- could dump up to 20 inches of rain
over mountains in its path, including Jamaica's coffee-producing Blue
Mountains, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
   In southern Haiti, wind gusts whipped sheets of rain and palm trees
Thursday morning and an inch of water gathered on the floor of a hotel in
Les Cayes.
   Tropical storm force winds from Dennis' outerbands reached eastern
Jamaica. "Regardless of landfall, Jamaica will have impacts ... practically
all day and into the evening hours," warned forecaster Dave Roberts of the
Hurricane Center.
   Last year three hurricanes -- Frances, Ivan and Jeanne -- tore through
the Caribbean with a collective ferocity not seen in many years, causing
hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damages.
   Hurricane warnings were posted for the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Haiti
and eastern Cuba, including the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, where
some 520 terror suspects are detained.
   Inside the detention center, the military prepared audio tapes in at
least eight languages warning that a storm was coming and heavy steel
shutters would be closed on some cell windows, said Col. Mike Bumgarner.
   Military officials had no immediate plans to evacuate troops or
detainees at Camp Delta, which is about 150 yards from the ocean but was
built to withstand winds up to 90 mph, according to Navy Cmdr. Anne Reese,
supervisor of camp maintenance and construction.
   Power lines could be knocked down and roofs could be damaged on some
older, wooden buildings, Reese said.
   "It will be bad, but it's not going to be very destructive," she said.
   Bumgarner said the military had a contingency plan to move the prisoners
if conditions became serious.
   Dennis grew into a Category 1 hurricane Wednesday afternoon and
threatened to hit Jamaica as a Category 2 with winds above 96 mph, the
Hurricane Center said.
   Haiti, also in the storm's projected path, took the deadliest hit of
last year's hurricane season when Jeanne, at the time a tropical storm,
triggered flooding and mudslides: 1,500 people were killed, 900 missing and
presumed dead and 200,000 left homeless. Torrential rains burst river banks
and irrigation canals and unleashed mudslides that destroyed thousands of
acres of fertile land in Haiti.
   Poverty-stricken Haitians said there was little they could do about the
warnings this time.
   "It's not only that we don't have money to prepare, we don't have money
either to eat. We are willing to stay here and let whatever happens
happen," said Martine Louis-Pierre, a 43-year-old mother of three.
   At 5 a.m. EDT, the storm was centered about 160 miles southeast of
Kingston, Jamaica, moving west-northwest near 15 mph, the Hurricane Center
said.
   Private forecaster AccuWeather had the storm tracking into the eastern
Gulf of Mexico, with landfall Friday or Saturday on the Florida-Alabama
border as a strong Category 2 or Category 3 hurricane, with winds from 96
mph to 130 mph.
   Radio stations in Haiti and Jamaica warned people to stay away from
rivers that could overflow their banks. Some southern roads in Haiti, which
is dangerously deforested, already were blocked by flooding Wednesday.
   In southern Les Cayes, Jose Luis Paez, assistant chief of operations for
U.N. civilian police, said 600 civilian police were trying to evacuate
people from low-lying areas, but some refused to leave.
   Jasmine Romelus, a 22-year-old student, was among them. "Hurricane?" she
asked. "They always say there's going to be a hurricane and it never
comes."
   Six small communities in the eastern Jamaica parish of St. Thomas were
also cut off by flood waters. Emergency officials urged coastal residents
-- a large percentage of the population of 2.6 million -- to move inland
and ordered schools closed until Friday so they could be used as shelters.
Kingston's airport was also closed.
   Jamaica's Prime Minister P.J. Patterson abandoned the final day of the
annual Caribbean summit in St. Lucia, to rush home. Before leaving, he
called on Jamaicans to prepare "to protect those who are infirm, the
elderly and the young."
   ------
   Associated Press Writers Ben Fox in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Stevenson
Jacobs in Kingston, Jamaica, contributed to this report.