25625: (news) Chamberlain: Hurricane Dennis kills in Haiti, aims at Cuba (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Horace Helps

     KINGSTON, Jamaica, July 7 (Reuters) - Hurricane Dennis triggered
deadly flooding in Haiti, sent mudslides down the mountains of Jamaica and
strengthened into an extremely dangerous storm with 135-mph (216-kph) winds
as it approached Cuba on Thursday.
     Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Dennis would
hit Cuba on Friday and head into the Gulf of Mexico, where U.S. oil
companies prepared for a possible threat to oil and gas rigs.
     Cuba evacuated 200,000 people from low-lying areas as authorities
warned the island's 11 million people that Dennis would strengthen further
before crossing through the provinces east of Havana.
     As it took aim at the U.S. coast, residents were ordered to evacuate
Key West and the lower part of the Florida Keys, an island chain connected
to the southern tip of mainland Florida by a single highway.
     It was expected to brush past the Keys on Saturday and slam ashore on
Sunday on the U.S. coast along the Florida Panhandle, which was hammered by
Hurricane Ivan last September.
     "When Dennis gets into the Gulf of Mexico, this will be a whole
statewide problem," said Florida state meteorologist Ken Nelson. "This is
going to be a very large storm like Ivan."
     NASA was expected to decide on Friday whether to delay the scheduled
launch on Wednesday of the space shuttle Discovery at Cape Canaveral on
Florida's Atlantic coast. It would be the first shuttle flight since the
Columbia accident in 2003. If the launch is delayed, Discovery will be
returned to its hangar for safety.
     Hurricane warnings were in effect for Jamaica, the Cayman Islands,
most of Cuba and parts of the Florida Keys.
     At 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), the center of Dennis was near Cabo Cruz in
southeastern Cuba, the hurricane center said.
     Its winds strengthened to 135 mph  (216 kph), becoming a Category 4
storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, capable of causing extreme
damage.
     Massive waves pounded eastern Cuba, overturning a truck on a coastal
road east of Santiago, Cuba's second-largest city, where strong gusts of
winds knocked down trees.
     Heavy rain flooded parts of southern Haiti and forced residents to
flee their homes. One person was killed when a tree fell on a house near
the southern city of Les Cayes and seven more were missing and feared dead
after floods swept them off a bridge in Grand-Goave southwest of
Port-au-Prince, civil protection spokesman Dieufort Deslorge said.
     "I was going to cross the bridge, I was about 30 metres   (100 feet)
away, suddenly, I saw it falling down", said Jonas Jean-Jacques, a young
student. "There were several people crossing at that time and all of them
fell off."
     Dennis drenched Jamaica, triggering mudslides that blocked roads as
the core of the storm moved north of the mountainous Caribbean island of
2.6 million. About 3,000 people moved to storm shelters in south-central
Jamaica.
     Jamaica's airports shut down, supermarkets ran low on supplies and
schools were closed. Soldiers and police were put on alert to prevent
looting.
     Tourists in the coastal resort cities of Negril, Ocho Rios and Montego
Bay remained in their hotels but were not asked to move to shelters. Some
had their departure delayed because two international airports were closed.
     The storm also doused the Cayman Islands, a tiny British territory and
banking center with 43,000 residents. Hurricane Ivan damaged or destroyed
70 percent of the buildings on Grand Cayman Island in September.

  (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince, Anthony
Boadle in Havana, Michael Peltier in Tallahassee and Irene Klotz at Cape
Canaveral)