Sept. 10, 2004
By IAN JAMES

Photo: Houses torn apart by the strong winds of Hurricane Ivan sit on one of the hills of St. George's, Grenada, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004. Hurricane Ivan took aim Thursday at Jamaica and possibly Florida after killing 23 people in five countries and devastating Grenada. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) - Hurricane Ivan left Grenada a wasteland of flattened houses, twisted metal and splintered wood and set off a frenzy of looting as it bore down on Jamaica on Friday with deadly winds and monstrous waves. The death toll in the Caribbean stood at 23 and was expected to rise.

A half million people fled their homes in Jamaica, where Ivan - a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 145 mph - was forecast to make a direct hit Friday afternoon.

"The destruction is worse than I've ever seen," said Michael Steele, a 34-year-old Grenada resident whose home was destroyed. "We're left with nothing."

U.S. officials ordered people to evacuate from the Florida Keys after forecasters said the storm, the fourth major hurricane of the Atlantic season, could hit the island chain by Sunday after crossing Cuba. It was the third evacuation ordered in Florida in a month, following Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Frances.

Ivan, already the deadliest hurricane to hit Caribbean islands in a decade, unleashed violent winds, downpours and waves across a wide area. It killed 13 people in Grenada, one in Tobago, four in Venezuela, one Canadian woman in Barbados, and four youngsters in the Dominican Republic who were swept away by a giant wave Thursday even though the storm was nearly 200 miles away.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Ivan's eye was about 165 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica and was moving west-northwest at 13 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended 50 miles, while tropical storm-force winds stretched 175 miles.

The worst damage was in Grenada, where house after house in the capital of St. George's was shredded by whipping winds. Stadium awnings collapsed, church roofs caved in and many trees snapped. Those left standing were stripped of leaves, giving a brownish tinge to debris-strewn hills overlooking the Caribbean Sea.

"When dogs interfere with garbage bags and strew the contents all over the place - that's what Grenada looks like," Trinidadian leader Patrick Manning said after visiting the island Thursday.

Manning met with Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell and told reporters on his return home that among Grenada's priorities was bringing security to end looting and recapturing prisoners who were terrorizing already traumatized residents.

More than 100 Caribbean soldiers from five countries arrived Thursday to help restore order on Grenada, an island of 100,000, and Manning said he would send more.

Looting broke out Thursday as hundreds of people, including families with children, smashed storm shutters and shop windows to take televisions and shopping carts of food. Some carried away bed frames and mattresses.

Police set up barricades on roads leading into the capital Thursday and ordered all but emergency workers off the streets. Hundreds of shouting and shoving people said they had to get to town to buy water and food, and in the turmoil police fired tear gas.

Many people, however, managed to get through and ignored the curfew. Wandering the streets in search of water, 30-year-old housewife Dawn Brown said she and her children had run from room to room as Ivan ripped sections off their roof. Eventually, the house was roofless and the family hid under a mattress as violent winds howled around them.

"I stared death in its face. What could be more scary than that?" Brown said.

Some 220 homes also were damaged in Barbados, and the hurricane tore roofs from dozens of houses in St. Lucia.

Troops from Barbados and Trinidad were among those keeping watch at Grenada's airport, where the floors were still slick and dozens of American medical students stood waiting for chartered flights home.

"Nothing is going to be functioning here for a long time," said Olivier de Raet, 37, a medical student from Potomac, Md., enrolled at St. George's University. "We'd rather go out, recuperate, and come back when school's ready."

Some university students said they were afraid of being attacked by looters and armed themselves with knives and sticks.

Electricity was knocked out on the island, and homes had no running water or telephone service. Some areas were cut off by fallen trees and debris, and the only communication was patchy cellular phone service, suggesting the toll of dead and injured could rise.

A U.S. Peace Corps official was to take a boat Friday to a remote northern area to find three volunteers unaccounted for since the storm, the U.S. Embassy in Barbados said.

To help communications after Grenada's radio station went off the air, the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in Barbados and Tobago's Radio Tambrin began broadcasting to Grenada, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency said. CBC also set up a toll-free hot line - 1-800-744-8222 - for Grenadians to send messages to relatives and friends.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and a hurricane watch was in place for parts of Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

In Jamaica, hundreds of tourists packed the airport in northern Montego Bay, appearing set to spend the night. Dozens of foreigners also waited at Kingston's airport until it was declared closed Thursday night. But Montego Bay's airport would remain open as long as possible to evacuate visitors, tourism officials said.

Workers bolted plywood to windows, while grocery stores and gas stations stayed open late for crowds of people stocking up ahead of the storm.

In Cuba, President Fidel Castro warned residents to brace for the storm. "Whatever the hurricane does, we will all work together" to rebuild, he said on Cuban television Thursday night, making clear his government would stick with its position of not accepting humanitarian aid from the U.S. government.

The first shipment of emergency relief arrived in Grenada Thursday from the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Barbados said it included blankets, plastic sheeting, dry food and water for 20,000 people.

British troops who had arrived on a navy ship helped clear the damaged airport, ferried in supplies such as drinking water, and treated some 100 injured at a hospital where they restored generator power.

Mitchell, the Grenadian leader, whose own home was flattened, said Ivan also devastated Grenada's important nutmeg crop and did major damage to the island's 17th century stone prison, allowing convicts to escape.

Mitchell had said they included politicians jailed for killings in a 1983 coup that led the United States to invade, but Manning said Mitchell told him those prisoners, jailed for life, had remained in the ruined building. Nineteen Americans died in the invasion, along with some 45 Grenadians and 24 Cubans.

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On the Net:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040910/D850PMV00.html