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Monster Gustav Pounds Cuba

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The Associated Press

Published: August 31, 2008

HAVANA - Gustav slammed into Cuba's tobacco-growing western tip as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane Saturday, and Cubans and Americans scrambled to flee the storm as it roared toward the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

Forecasters said Gustav was just short of becoming a top-scale Category 5 hurricane as it hit Cuba's mainland after passing over its Isla de la Juventud province, where shrieking 150 mph winds toppled telephone poles, and mango and almond trees, and peeled back the tin roofs of homes.

Isla de la Juventud civil defense chief Ana Isla said there were "many people injured" on the island south of Cuba, but no reports of deaths. She said nearly all roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded.

Authorities evacuated at least 250,000 people from western Cuba, including Isla de la Juventud.

Gustav has killed more than 80 people with floods and landslides in other Caribbean nations.

By late Saturday night, Gustav's eye was speeding over Cuba and was expected to soon reach the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Gustav could become a Category 5 hurricane, with winds exceeding 155 mph.

Cuba's top meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said Gustav's massive center made landfall in mainland Cuba near the community of Los Palacios in Pinar del Rio - a region that produces much of Cuba's famed tobacco and cigars.

Rubiera said the storm would bring hurricane-force winds to much of the western part of Havana, Cuba's capital, where power was knocked out as winds blasted sheets of rain sideways though the streets and whipped angry waves against the famed seaside Malecon boulevard.

Felled tree branches and large chunks of muddy earth littered crowded roads.

Cuba grounded all domestic flights and halted all buses and trains to and from Havana, where some shuttered stores had hand-scrawled "closed for evacuation" signs plastered to doors.

"It's been following us all over Cuba, ruining our vacation," said Lidia Morral, who with her husband was visiting from Spain.

The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, hundreds of miles to the east, was out of Gustav's path.

On Friday, Gustav rolled over the Cayman Islands with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines while destroying docks and tossing boats ashore, but there was little major damage and no deaths were reported.

Haiti's Interior Ministry on Saturday raised the death toll to 66 from 59. Jamaica raised its count to seven. Gustav also killed eight people in the Dominican Republic.

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