ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada - Police fired tear gas to stop a looting frenzy in devastated Grenada, and frightened students armed themselves with knives and sticks.
Ivan pummeled Grenada, Barbados and other southern islands on Tuesday, killing 23 people. It strengthened into a Category 5 storm Thursday and was to hit Jamaica, where officials urged a half million people to evacuate coastal and flood-prone areas today.
The storm left its worst damage in Grenada, where from the air it appeared that nearly every house had been ripped up. Hunks of twisted metal and splintered wood torn from homes were strewn across the hillsides and roads of this country of 100,000 people. Many trees were snapped off, and those left standing were stripped of their leaves. The stone walls of the capital's cathedral withstood the storm, but the entire roof had caved in.
In St. George's, the capital, police struggled to stop looting. Hundreds of people, including entire families with children, smashed hurricane shutters and shop windows to take televisions and shopping carts of food. An Associated Press reporter watched people walk away with bed frames and mattresses on their heads.
Troops from other Caribbean nations were on the way to help restore order.
Thursday afternoon, police set up barricades on roads leading into the capital and ordered all but emergency personnel off the streets. Hundreds of screaming and shoving people said they had to get to town to buy water and food. Police fired more tear gas.
But many managed to get through, saying they were desperate for water.
Among them was Dawn Brown, a 30-year-old housewife, who said she and her children ran from room to room in her home as Ivan ripped off sections of their roof. Eventually, the house was left roofless and the family hid beneath a mattress as its 130-mph winds howled around them.
"I stared death in its face. What could be more scary than that?" Brown said as she wandered the streets in search of water. The island has had no running water since Monday, when officials turned it off to save the plant from damage.
The first shipment of emergency relief arrived Thursday from the United States, which declared Grenada a disaster area to allow the immediate release of $50,000. There were enough blankets, plastic sheeting, dry food and water for 20,000 people, according to the U.S. Embassy in Barbados.
On Wednesday night, St. George's University students armed themselves with knives and sticks, fearing they would be attacked by looters.
In Grenada, Ivan killed 13 people and British sailors were treating about 100 injured at the hospital, where they restored generator power Thursday.
Every major building in the capital has suffered structural damage, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Wednesday.
Also devastated was the "spice isle's" agriculture, including its famous nutmeg crop, Mitchell said.
He also confirmed that the 17th century stone prison was "completely devastated," allowing convicts to escape, including politicians jailed for 20 years for killings in a 1983 left-wing palace coup that led the United States to invade.
Ivan's outer bands hit Barbados' south coast on Tuesday, damaging some 220 homes. It also tore roofs from dozens of homes in St. Lucia and in Tobago, where a woman died. Its heavy rains flooded parts of Venezuela's coast and left four Venezuelans dead.
The dead included a 75-year-old Canadian woman who drowned in a canal swollen by flood waters in Barbados after going out in the storm to search for her cat, and four youngsters in the capital of the Dominican Republic who were swept away by a giant wave Thursday even though the storm was nearly 200 miles from land.
In Jamaica, hundreds of tourists packed the airport of Montego Bay.
