Tropical Storm Ernesto was moving towards south Florida on Tuesday — the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — after soaking Cuba with heavy rain.
Florida residents lined up for supplies with the approach of Ernesto, which could strengthen over the warm waters of the Florida Straits. But the storm was expected to pack less than hurricane strength when it hit — possibly in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area, home to about five million people.
Ernesto, which briefly became the Atlantic season’s first hurricane on Sunday, killed two people in Haiti before striking Cuba, where it dropped up to 18cm of rain.
At 2am (6am GMT), Ernesto was barely at tropical storm strength, with top winds of 64 kph. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when winds reach 119kph.
The US National Hurricane Centre said Ernesto would likely move back over water later on Tuesday morning and be near the Florida Keys by evening.
”Just prepare. It’s not fun and games,” Mike Puto, city manager of Marathon in the Keys, told residents.
Forecasters said Ernesto could dump 12-25cm of rain over parts of east and south Florida and the Keys until Wednesday. The state has been battered by eight hurricanes in two years.
Officials and residents were mindful of nature’s force a year to the day since Hurricane Katrina slammed the US Gulf Coast, where it swamped New Orleans, killed 1 500 people and caused $80-billion in damage.
Nasa called off the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis from Cape Canaveral this week. Florida declared a state of emergency and television stations reminded residents to fill bathtubs with water and put up hurricane shutters.
Tourists were ordered out of the Florida Keys, a low-lying, 177km island chain off Florida’s southern tip. Courts and schools were closed across the region.
Ernesto made landfall in Cuba earlier on Monday near Guantánamo Bay, site of the US naval base where several hundred suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are held.
Cuba spared
By 2am (6am GMT), the centre of Ernesto was near the north coast of Cuba, about 32km south-southeast north of Canagua. It was 442km south-east of Key West, Florida, and about 425km south-southeast of Miami. Ernesto was moving west-northwest at 19kph, the Miami-based hurricane centre said.
In Cuba, many of the 600 000 people who were evacuated before the storm returned home after Ernesto passed, with no initial reports of deaths or serious damage.
”It wasn’t as bad as we expected. There was much less rain,” said Yieney, a receptionist at the Brisas Santa Lucia hotel on the coast of Camaguey province, where 200 package-deal tourists were staying. They were not evacuated.
Ernesto’s centre stayed over land in Cuba longer than forecasters had expected. Passage over land areas, especially mountains, generally saps a storm’s strength.
”This is really good news,” National Hurricane Centre Director Max Mayfield said. ”I think the chance of it becoming a hurricane are diminishing.”
Oil prices edged up on Tuesday after falling more than $2 on Monday as Ernesto seemed less likely to threaten oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, where a quarter of US oil and gas is pumped.- Reuters