Noel becomes hurricane*

Reuters

The center of Noel was about 810 miles west-southwest of Bermuda by
midnight British time and its maximum sustained winds had reached near
75 miles per hour (120 kph) - MIAMI - Tropical Storm Noel, whose rains
have killed at least 108 people in the Caribbean, strengthened into a
hurricane in the Atlantic on Thursday as it moved away from the Bahamas
toward Bermuda, U.S. forecasters said.

The center of Noel was about 810 miles west-southwest of Bermuda by
midnight British time and its maximum sustained winds had reached near
75 miles per hour (120 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Noel is now a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest level on the
Saffir/Simpson scale.

A hurricane watch was in effect for the northwestern Bahamas as Noel
moved farther away on a long-anticipated shift to the north-northeast
that would eventually bring it as a possibly fierce but nontropical
storm to Nova Scotia, Canada.

A tropical storm warning remained in effect for the central Bahamas, but
the hurricane center said the watch and warning would likely be
discontinued on Thursday night.

The British mid-Atlantic territory of Bermuda posted a gale warning,
just in case Noel veered more to the east than forecast, U.S. hurricane
forecasters said.

The center of Noel was 115 miles north-northeast of Nassau, Bahamas, and
was moving north-northeast at a brisk 17 mph , the hurricane center
said. The storm's speed was expected to increase over the next 24 hours.

The storm is expected to douse eastern Cuba with another 1 to 2 inches
of rain, and North Carolina's Outer Banks could receive an inch .

TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION

The northernmost islands of the Bahamas were still feeling Noel's
onslaught on Thursday and several churches opened as shelters on the
island of Abaco.

"We are laying on food and the people are bedding down on the floors of
the churches," Red Cross volunteer Barbara Johnson said.

Residents of Long Island in the central Bahamas suffered "devastating"
losses as the storm dumped a record 15 inches (38 cm) of rain on the
island over two days, the National Emergency Management Agency said. The
storm caused flood levels on the island not seen for 60 years and
families at several settlements were forced to evacuate homes and
businesses as water reached a depth of 3 feet in some places.

The storm left a trail of waterlogged death and destruction in the
Caribbean after slamming the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba with
unrelenting downpours.

At least 73 people died in the Dominican Republic, many of them swept
away in muddy floodwaters after two rivers burst their banks and tore
through the village of Villa Altagracia outside Santo Domingo.

Thirty-four people were confirmed killed in Haiti, which shares the
island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, said Alta
Jean-Baptiste, head of the civil protection service.

In Jamaica, one person died when a house collapsed because of heavy rain.

In Cuba, thousands were evacuated from vulnerable areas and reservoirs
overflowed, but no deaths were reported.

U.S. forecasters projected the 14th named storm of the 2007 Atlantic
storm season would quickly lose its tropical characteristics as it sped
to the northeast toward Nova Scotia with powerful extratropical winds.

(Additional reporting by John Marquis in Nassau and Manuel Jimenez in
Santo Domingo)