girlie kennyboy: your wish that Emily will destroy the oil rigs in the Gulf ?? read again before you post your ill-wishes:
Weakened Emily Heads Toward Jamaica
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:43 p.m. ET
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) -- Hurricane Emily weakened slightly Friday as it moved through the eastern Caribbean toward Jamaica after shattering windows, flooding hospitals and killing at least one person in Grenada.
Emily was downgraded to a Category 3 with winds of 125 mph Friday morning after it cleared the Windward Islands, unleashing heavy surf, gusty winds and torrential rain hundreds of miles away: Trinidad in the south, nearby Venezuela to the west, and Hispaniola in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami projected the hurricane would move just south of Jamaica on Saturday, pass the Cayman Islands and hit Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday night.
If it continues on the same path, it will make landfall sometime Wednesday between Tuxpan, Mexico, and Galveston, Texas, about a 600 mile span, hurricane center spokesman Frank Lepore said, while cautioning that ''a lot could change between now and then.''
The second major hurricane of the Atlantic season after Dennis, Emily's winds reached 135 mph at one point Friday, making it what meteorologist Stacy Stewart called a ''very rare Category 4 hurricane in the Caribbean Sea in the month of July.''
The storm struck hard in Grenada on Thursday, especially in the northern parishes of St. Patrick's and St. Andrew's and the outlying islands of Carriacou and Petit Martinique, authorities said.
The damage comes as the island nation is still recovering from Hurricane Ivan, which last year destroyed thousands of homes and damaged 90 percent of the historic Georgian buildings in the capital.
''Just as we were trying to rebuild ... this is a very, very major setback,'' said Barry Colleymore, a spokesman for Prime Minister Keith Mitchell. ''There's been lots of destruction.''
The Organization of American States expressed concern at the prospect of a ''severe economic setback'' to countries hit by hurricanes, especially Grenada, and called an emergency meeting for Friday.
A man in his 40s was killed when a landslide crushed his home in St. Andrew's, said Allen McGuire, Grenada's consul general in New York City.
In the capital, St. George's, winds blew out windows and caused flooding at the main hospital, Colleymore said. On Carriacou, the storm damaged the roof of the only hospital, forcing the evacuation of patients, officials said. Sixteen houses were destroyed and more than 200 were damaged, McGuire said.
Elsewhere in Grenada, two police stations and two homes for the elderly also lost their roofs, landslides and fallen trees blocked roads, streets were flooded and crops were destroyed.
In Trinidad, widespread flooding triggered landslides that cut off the only access road to two east coast communities, marooning hundreds of residents. At least one house washed away and hundreds of people were without water or electricity, Mayor Eustace Nancis said.
Jamaica posted a hurricane warning and the Cayman Islands were under a hurricane watch, while tropical storm warnings were lifted for Venezuela and the islands of Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba.
In Grenada, Mitchell had sought to reassure citizens the government would not be caught off-guard -- as it was when Ivan killed 39 people and left a wasteland of ruined buildings in September.
''We took this very, very seriously,'' said Colin Dowe, an assistant dean at St. George's University, where dozens of students and faculty members waited out the storm. ''Ivan was much stronger so the general feeling is that we can get through this.''
In Venezuela, authorities on Friday lifted restrictions on maritime travel for small vessels and oil tankers.
Antonio Rivero, director of Venezuela's emergency protection agency, said the restrictions were lifted at all ports along the Caribbean coast in the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Rivero said heavy rains and flooding caused by the hurricane in some regions did not cause any deaths or injuries. He said the hurricane caused rivers in eastern Monagas state to overflow their banks, forcing 64 families to temporarily leave their homes.
Early Friday, Emily was centered about 465 miles east-southeast of the Jamaican capital of Kingston, moving west-northwest near 20 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 40 miles and tropical storm-force winds another 140 miles.
Emily trails Hurricane Dennis, which destroyed crops and killed at least 25 people in Haiti and 16 in Cuba last week, according to authorities in the two countries.
------
Associated Press Writers Jorge Rueda in Cumana, Venezuela, and Loren Brown in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, contributed to this report.
------
On the Net:
nhc.noaa.gov |
