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Tropical Storm Noel Lashes Cuba, Bahamas

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By JESSICA ROBERTSON, The Associated Press

Published: November 2, 2007

Updated: 11/02/2007 12:22 am

NASSAU, Bahamas - Tropical Storm Noel drenched the Bahamas and Cuba on Thursday, while in the storm's wake rescuers in the Dominican Republic headed out in boats and helicopters to reach dozens of communities stranded by floods and mudslides. The death toll in the Caribbean rose to 108.

Noel on Thursday became the deadliest storm of the Atlantic region this year. Hurricane Felix, a devastating Category 5 storm, killed 101 people when it lashed the Caribbean and slammed into the Nicaraguan and Honduran coasts in early September.

The storm strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane late Thursday as it moved away from the Bahamas into the Atlantic Ocean, forecasters said.

At 11 p.m., its maximum sustained winds increased to about 80 mph, and had higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane force winds extended up to 45 miles out, and tropical storm force winds extended up to 145 miles out.

It is expected to weaken today.

Noel poured rain and misery on four central and eastern provinces in Cuba. Muddy waters overflowed a dam and washed into hundreds of homes and over highways. Electricity and phone services were knocked out and dozens of small communities were cut off.

Cuban soldiers went door-to-door in low-lying areas and evacuated about 24,000 people, according to state radio and television reports. At least 2,000 homes were damaged by flood waters, but there was no official word of deaths.

In Ciego de Avila province in central Cuba, flooding wiped out nearly 2,000 tons of corn, potato, banana, cucumber and tomato harvests, said Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, a vice president.

In the Bahamas, Kevin Milford, 32, drowned when he abandoned his stalled truck on the island of Great Exuma and was sucked into a roiling pond by floodwaters sweeping over the road, said Dwight Hart, the owner of a local radio station where Milford worked.

Rescuers in the Dominican Republic took off in helicopters and boats to reach isolated residents for the first time in three days. Hundreds of volunteers joined Dominican civil defense forces to help stranded residents, as rescue teams left at dawn Thursday - many in boats loaned by private owners.

"We will go to each point where there have been people affected who require the government's help ... so that we can return to a normal situation in the shortest amount of time possible," said Dominican President Leonel Fernandez.

More than three days of heavy rain caused an estimated $30 million in damages to the Dominican Republic's rice, plantain and cacao plantations, said Minister of Economy Juan Temistocles Montas. Government officials will request two loans worth $100 million each from the Inter-American Development Bank to help ravaged areas recover.

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