The United States’s Gulf Coast was braced for disaster on Saturday night as a killer hurricane headed for the US after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean.
Hurricane Dennis has killed at least 32 people in Haiti and Cuba and is expected to make landfall on a stretch of coast anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida panhandle by Sunday afternoon.
More than half a million people along the Gulf Coast and the Florida Keys have already been evacuated, streaming inland in long queues of traffic as the storm headed in their direction.
Governors of four states — Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana — have declared states of emergency as they prepare for Dennis’s arrival. Most businesses along the coast have been shut since Friday. Local airports have already shut.
Offshore oil workers in the Gulf have evacuated their rigs, and the US Air Force has moved many of its planes in the regions away from their coastal bases.
As Dennis blew out of Cuba and headed to the US, its wind speed had dropped from a category-four hurricane to a category two, with sustained winds of 168kph. However, as it moves back out over the open and warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane will almost certainly pick up speed again. The most powerful storms reach category five.
For residents of the Florida panhandle and Alabama, which are in the dead centre of Dennis’s projected path, the mass evacuations were similar to those last year when Hurricane Ivan struck the same coast. Much of the damage done then has still not been repaired.
Florida’s Governor, Jeb Bush, brother of President George Bush, issued a statement on Saturday calling on everyone to obey evacuation orders and remain indoors with stockpiles of food and medicines. He said any shopkeepers who raise the prices of essential items will be prosecuted.
Dennis has already revealed its power when it cut a path across Cuba where it killed at least 10 people and drove 1,5-million people from their homes.
”[It] has arrived with all its diabolical force,” said the Cuban President, Fidel Castro. Dennis made landfall in the south-east of the country and skirted the capital, Havana, pounding the island with heavy rains, fierce winds and huge storm surges along the coast.
Castro said 10 people died in the south-east of the country. One was a child who fell into the water as the mother tried to cross an old bridge.
Defence Minister Raul Castro, the president’s brother, toured storm-damaged areas and Cuban state television showed many wooden homes in rural areas had been flattened and corrugated metal roofs had been ripped off.
At the controversial US naval base of Guantánamo Bay, American soldiers prepared hundreds of detainees for evacuation. But the base escaped without major problems, though power lines and trees were brought down and a guard tower was washed into the sea.
”Actually, everybody fared real well,” said Guantánamo spokesperson navy Commander Anne Reese.
On the impoverished island of Haiti, Dennis killed at least 22 people as it caused bridges to collapse amid flash floods and brought down power lines in a broad swath of the country.
Haiti’s south-west was cut off from the rest of the country after a 90m long bridge was swept away, killing 15 people.
Severe flooding also hit Jamaica, which narrowly escaped a direct hit by the storm. Helicopters ferried food and other emergency supplies to seven towns in the eastern part of the island that have been cut off.
”Flooding has affected every parish of the island,” said Nadene Newsome, a spokesperson for the country’s emergency services.
Much of the Caribbean and the southern US have been preparing for a heavy year of hurricanes. The season is becoming an annual ritual of death and destruction that some experts have blamed on global warming. Last year, four catastrophic hurricanes — Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne — hit the area with a ferocity not seen for years, causing hundreds of deaths and huge damage.
This year has already set new records as there have already been four storms powerful enough to be given names. That is the first time that has happened since records began in 1851.
”This is the earliest we’ve had this many named storms in recorded history in the Atlantic,” said US weather forecaster Chris Lauer.
Dennis is also the most powerful storm to form this early in the hurricane season in more than 150 years. The season does not end until November 30, and experts say it will be one of the most violent on record. — Guardian Unlimited Â