Hurricane Deans Blows Into Caribbean -

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Hurricane Dean blows into Caribbean, targets Gulf
By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Dean grew into a major storm with 200 kph winds on Friday after it smashed into the Caribbean islands, knocking out power and setting off landslides before heading toward the oil and gas rigs of the Gulf of Mexico.

Dean strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane capable of widespread destruction after it roared through the narrow channel between the Lesser Antilles islands of St. Lucia and Martinique, crossing from the Atlantic Ocean to the warm Caribbean Sea.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Dean would grow to a Category 4 storm, the second-highest level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with 150 mph (240 kph) winds as it races toward the Gulf, home to a third of U.S. domestic crude oil and 15 percent of natural gas production.

Energy markets have been skittish about hurricanes since powerful storms in 2004 and 2005, including Ivan, Katrina and Rita, disrupted oil and gas production. Transocean, Royal Dutch Shell, Murphy Oil and other companies pulled dozens of workers from offshore rigs.

Dean, the first hurricane of what is expected to be an above-average Atlantic season, lifted the roof off the pediatric wing at Victoria Hospital in St. Lucia's capital, Castries, but patients had already been moved, officials said.

Heraldine Rock, an ex-government minister in the former British colony of 170,000 people, said the storm ripped roofs off houses and damaged at least two banana plantations.

"In one village, telephone and power lines are down, they're strewn all over the road, trees are uprooted and are blocking the roads," she said. "In another village, a landslide has been reported, cutting off any access to the airport."

Deputy Prime Minister Leonard Montoute said at least two people were injured when a tree fell on their house.

"I'm told that the coastal areas have taken a severe battering, there's debris all over Castries in the capital and flood waters on the roads," he said.

On neighboring Martinique, an elderly man died of a heart attack during the storm and six people were injured, according to France's state office for overseas territories. Electricity company EDF said 95 percent of homes were without power.

HEADING FOR GULF

By 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), Dean was 280 km west of Martinique and moving west at about 35 kph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Category 3 to 5 storms, referred to collectively as "major" storms, are generally the most destructive and have included infamous hurricanes like Katrina.

Dean's projected path would take it near Jamaica by Sunday and toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula or straight into the Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan Channel by Tuesday.

If it crosses the Yucatan, it is projected to emerge in the southern Gulf as a Category 3 storm and could disrupt operations in the Cantarell Complex of Mexican oil fields, which is one of the world's most productive and supplies two thirds of Mexico's crude oil output.

One weather model projected that Dean would hit Louisiana, which bore the brunt of Rita and Katrina.

Storm alerts were in effect across the Caribbean region, including Hispaniola, the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Anguilla, Grenada, Saba, St. Eustatius, Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Maarten.

Forecasters have predicted the six-month hurricane season would be more active than average with up to 16 named storms. An average year historically has 10 to 11 storms.

hirokuyumi

Betul ler...hubby I tengah kat Gulf Mexico..offshore, I kat Central Texas...hujan ribut, punya lebat....weird sungguh summer this year kat Texas.

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Powerful Hurricane Dean pummels Jamaica
By Horace Helps

KINGSTON (Reuters) - Fiercely powerful Hurricane Dean strafed Jamaica's southern coast on Sunday, littering the capital of Kingston with fallen trees and windblown roofs after killing six people earlier on its run through the Caribbean.

The hurricane was an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm, the second-highest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and could strengthen into a rare and potentially catastrophic Category 5 near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.


A resident of Port Royal watches
the sky before the arrival of Hurricane
Dean in Kingston, Jamaica August 19, 2007.

Jamaica's government declared a 48-hour curfew and the power company switched off electricity as the wind began to howl and pounding waves battered the southern coast.

Heavy rain pelted Kingston and streets were blocked by toppled trees and utility poles. Dean ripped off several roofs and a man was missing after falling trees tore into his house.

"The dead center of the eye is south of Jamaica by a few miles. But the center is close enough to Jamaica that they are likely getting hurricane-force winds along the southern coast," said Richard Knabb, a storm expert at the hurricane center.

Mudslides were reported in several parts of the country.

The government had urged residents to go to shelters. Some residents of one low-lying seaport town close to Kingston refused to leave.

"We are going nowhere," Byron Thompson said in the former buccaneer town of Port Royal, settled by pirate Henry Morgan in the 16th century. "In fact, if you come by here later today you will see me drinking rum over in that bar with some friends."

Earlier in the day, tempers flared in shops where Jamaicans scrambled to stock up on batteries, flashlights, canned tuna, rice and water.

Campaigning for Aug. 27 elections was halted.

Dean packed sustained winds of 145 miles per hour and its eye was about 50 miles south of Kingston at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).

STORM WARNINGS

Storm warnings were also in effect for the Cayman Islands, Mexico's Yucatan, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Belize. The latest computer tracking models forecast Dean would spare the U.S. Gulf Coast but slam into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, cross the Bay of Campeche and then hit central Mexico.

Thousands of frightened tourists on Mexico's Caribbean coast stood in line for hours at airports to flee before Dean's expected arrival on Monday.

One man was killed in Haiti when a tree fell on a house in Murun in the southwestern province of Grand Anse, and a woman died in a mudslide in the south, civil defense officials said.

That brought to at least six the number killed by Dean since it roared between the Lesser Antilles islands of Martinique and St. Lucia on Friday as the first hurricane of what is expected to be an active 2007 Atlantic storm season.

Landslides also destroyed several hundred houses in southern Haiti, damaged crops and injured 10 people but there were no reports of further deaths, said Alta Jean-Baptiste, the Civil Protection director in the country of 8 million.

Dean was moving west at 20 mph and was being watched closely by energy markets, which have been nervous since a series of storms in 2004 and 2005 toppled Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, flooded refineries and cut pipelines.

Mexico's Pemex oil company started to evacuate 13,360 workers from its Gulf rigs ahead of Dean's arrival there.

Dean was expected to hit the Yucatan Peninsula early in the week and then smack into the central Mexican coast.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour hastily departed the orbiting International Space Station in order to land back on Earth a day ahead of schedule in case the storm forced NASA to evacuate its mission control center in Houston.

Airlines added flights to ferry tourists from the Caymans. Hoteliers on the famed Seven Mile Beach laid out sandbags, cut down coconuts to keep them from becoming windborne missiles and moved guests and furniture to safer midlevel floors.

Category 5 hurricanes are rare but in 2005 there were four, including Katrina, reinforcing research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.