Hurricane Ivan flogs Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Waves two-stories high and torrential rains flooded eastern Jamaica, and punishing winds knocked down trees and power lines as Hurricane Ivan slammed coastal areas late Friday night, heading for a direct hit on the island. The death toll elsewhere in the Caribbean rose to 37.

Ivan’s winds strengthened to nearly 155 mph – the most powerful Category 5 ranking – as the storm’s center moved toward landfall at around 3 a.m. EDT, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

But the hurricane was expected to spare the densely populated capital of 1 million people the brunt of its wrath.

Reports of sporadic gunfire and looting in Kingston reached the emergency management agency, said spokeswoman Nadine Newsome, but police could not confirm that.

Howling winds and sheets of horizontal rain crashed around the eastern end of the blacked-out island after utility officials turned off the power to minimize damage to plants.

Prime Minister P.J. Patterson declared a public emergency Friday afternoon and pleaded with the half million people considered in danger – about one in five islanders – to get to shelters. But most residents refused to leave for fear abandoned homes would be robbed.

“I’m not saying I’m not afraid for my life, but we’ve got to stay here and protect our things,” said Lorna Brown, 49, pointing to a stove, television, cooking utensils and large bed crowded into a one-room concrete home on the beach at the northwestern resort of Montego Bay.

Cuba declared a hurricane watch across the entire island Friday after its leader, Fidel Castro, went on national television warning residents to brace themselves. “Whatever the hurricane does, we will all work together” to rebuild, he said.

In South Florida, long lines reappeared at gas stations and shoppers swarmed home building stores and supermarkets. Forecasters said Ivan could tear through the Keys as early as Monday, though there was still a chance the storm would instead move out into the Gulf of Mexico.

Farther south, in areas already struck by Ivan, authorities discovered more bodies along Venezuela’s flooded coast and in devastated Grenada, where the U.S. State Department was arranging for the evacuations of all Americans who wish to leave the island.

“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.

In Jamaica, awed onlookers stood transfixed on the seaside Palisadoes Highway near Kingston’s airport as 23-foot waves crashed to shore, thrusting rocks and dead tree branches more than 100 feet into the road.