Ernesto hits Cuba, heads toward Florida
Pastor Dale Morgan
Ernesto hits Cuba, heads toward Florida*
1 killed in Haiti; Florida orders tourists to evacuate Keys
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 8:48 a.m. MT Aug 28, 2006
HAVANA - Tropical Storm Ernesto hit Cuba west of the U.S. naval air base
at Guantanamo on Monday after killing one person in Haiti as it stayed
on track toward Florida, where forecasters expect it to strengthen into
a hurricane.
Cuba ramped up emergency preparations before the fifth named storm of
the Atlantic hurricane season moved ashore about 20 miles west of
Guantanamo with top sustained winds dropping to 40 mph.
Ernesto will possibly emerge off the northern coast of Cuba Monday night
or Tuesday morning, it added.
“How long the center spends over Cuba is going to determine how strong
the system emerges north of Cuba,” hurricane specialist Rick Knabb told
reporters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
“Right now we think there is a decent chance that the system will spend
a short enough time over Cuba such that it will have an opportunity to
strengthen (before reaching Florida).”
At 11 a.m. ET, Ernesto was about 485 miles southeast of Key West, Fla.,
moving northwest at 10 mph.
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 the
hurricane center. “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 before weakening Monday.
Storm expected to strengthen
Apparently diminished by Haiti’s mountainous southwestern peninsula,
Ernesto was expected to regain strength after traversing Cuba’s 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.
The Cuban 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.
Ernesto kills 1 in Haiti
In Haiti, Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of the 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, 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.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.