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Tropical storm Ernesto batters Haiti
AFP
LES CAYES, Haiti
Petroleumworld.com 08 28 06
Tropical Storm Ernesto battered Haiti, claiming at least one life, then menaced Cuba on Monday as it followed a track that could carry it toward Florida as a revived hurricane.
Cuba ramped up emergency preparations, and forecasters said the storm would be close to the island's southeastern coast Monday morning — possibly as a hurricane.Florida Gov. Jeb Bush declared an emergency, ordering tourists to evacuate the Florida Keys.
"We do expect it to reach the Gulf, maybe as a Category 1 hurricane, possibly a Category 2," said John Cangialosi, a meteorologist with U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. "It's difficult to say where it will be, but in three days we're projecting it anywhere from the eastern Gulf near the Florida panhandle to the western Bahamas."
Ernesto became the Atlantic season's first hurricane on Sunday morning with maximum sustained winds of about 75 mph. But it weakened into a tropical storm, with 50 mph winds early Monday.
Apparently diminished by Haiti's mountainous southwestern peninsula, Ernesto was expected to regain strength after passing the rough terrain.
Forecasters issued a hurricane watch Monday for the southern peninsula of Florida. A hurricane watch remained in effect for all of the Florida Keys.
Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti's civil protection agency, said one person on Vache island off Haiti's south coast died in the storm, but she could not give details.
Skies darkened as wind gusts swayed palm trees in Les Cayes, 100 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince. People put goats and cows into shelters, and fishermen pulled nets ashore.
Forecasters said up to 20 inches of rain could fall in some mountain areas of Haiti, raising fears of flash floods in the heavily deforested country.
"The only thing we can do is just wait and keep our fingers crossed," said Frantz Gregoire, 42, owner of the Bay Club, a thatch-roofed seaside restaurant. He said he would send his workers home if the storm worsened.
Haitian officials went on the radio to warn people in coastal shantytowns to seek shelter in schools and churches and they evacuated some low-lying areas in the northwestern city of Gonaives, which was devastated by floods during Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004.
In Cuba, the government issued a hurricane warning for six eastern provinces and Cuban state television broadcast extensive warnings about the storm, urging precautions. Cattle were moved to higher ground, tourists were evacuated from hotels in the southeastern province of Granma, and baseball games scheduled for Sunday night in Havana were played earlier in the day.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for Jamaica and the central Bahamas.
Cruise ship companies said they were diverting several liners to avoid the storm.
At 5 a.m. EDT Monday, Ernesto, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was centered about 45 miles south-southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba. It was moving northwest at about 12 mph.
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Associated Press writers Howard Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica, and Vanessa Arrington in Havana contributed to this report.
AP 28 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AP. All Rights Reserved.
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