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Strengthening Dean sops eastern Caribbean

The Atlantic season's first hurricane grows into a Category 4 as it heads toward the gulf.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 18, 2007

CASTRIES, St. Lucia - Hurricane Dean roared into the eastern Caribbean on Friday, tearing away roofs, flooding streets and causing at least three deaths on small islands as the powerful storm headed on a collision course with Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

By midevening, the Atlantic season's first hurricane had strengthened into a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 135 mph after crossing over the warm waters of the Caribbean, and forecasters warned it could grow into a monster tempest with 150 mph winds before steering next week into the Gulf of Mexico.

Dean could threaten the United States by Wednesday, forecasters said.

On tiny St. Lucia, fierce winds tore corrugated metal roofs from dozens of houses and a hospital's pediatric ward, whose patients had been evacuated hours earlier. Police said a 62-year-old man drowned when he tried to retrieve a cow from a rain-swollen river.

The government on Dominica reported that a woman and her 7-year-old son died when a rain-soaked hillside gave way and crushed the house where they were sleeping.

Dean was forecast to brush the southern coast of Haiti late today, then hit Jamaica on Sunday and strengthen to Category 4 status, with winds between 131 and 155 mph, before clipping Yucatan two days later.

Jamaican officials said Kingston's national arena will serve as one of several shelters, and they drafted a plan to move inmates at two maximum security prisons if needed.

On Yucatan, Mexican authorities broadcast radio alerts warning people to "be prepared." Some people boarded up windows and stocked up on supplies, while officials prepared some 570 schools, gymnasiums and public buildings as shelters.

Dominica's government reported at least 150 homes were damaged.

"I saw the roof of a municipal building fly off," Louis Joseph Manscour, deputy mayor of Trinite, Martinique, said during the storm. "This is a very hard thing to experience right now. The wind is something impressive."

[Last modified August 18, 2007, 01:16:10]