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KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Jamaicans stocked up on supplies and reinforced roofs on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Sandy, which is expected to hit the Caribbean island of posh resorts and sprawling shantytowns as a hurricane with lashing rain and wind.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the strengthening storm was churning over warm Caribbean waters and should reach Jamaica on Wednesday, most likely as a Category 1 hurricane. The late-season storm is expected to travel from south to north over the island, which local meteorologists say hasn't sustained a direct hit from a hurricane's eye since powerful Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
Acting Prime Minister Peter Phillips said "all Jamaicans must take the threat of this storm seriously" and asked people to look out for their neighbours, especially children, the elderly and the disabled.
Hurricane conditions were possible in eastern Cuba by Wednesday night. The storm is forecast to pass near the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where pretrial hearings are being held for a suspect in the attack on the Navy destroyer the USS Cole. Authorities at the base had considered suspending this week's proceedings, but said that as of late Tuesday they planned to continue despite Sandy.
On Tuesday night, the outer bands of Sandy were drenching parts of Jamaica with steady rain that sent brown water rushing down streets and gullies. Tropical storm winds were expected to hit later in the night or early Wednesday.
Schools, government offices and Kingston's port shut down early and the country's international airports prepared to close Wednesday morning.
The Jamaican Constabulary Force called numerous curfews in neighbourhoods across the island to prevent crime and protect properties.
In the poor Kingston community of Standpipe, Christopher "Boxer" Bryce and his relatives were bracing for the worst as they quickly tried to finish repairs to their concrete home's leaking roof.
"This is giving all of us a nervous feeling, old and young. I'm hoping the storm doesn't leave too many problems," said Bryce, as his brother Brian adjusted a plastic bucket to catch more of the water dripping steadily down from the cracked ceiling.
Across a debris-clogged gully, dreadlocked Philip Salmon was trying to find more sheet metal to bolster his shack's rusting roof. The labourer lives by himself in a ramshackle settlement of illegal homes near the U.S. Embassy.
"Everybody's worried about it here, I can tell you. This storm is no small thing," said Salmon, whose sheet metal roof is held in place by rocks, just like that of many of his neighbours.
Two years ago, six members of a family living along a nearby stretch of the gully were swept away during the relatively weak Tropical Storm Nicole after part of their home collapsed into the waterway's raging current. People living in the shantytowns are warned repeatedly to move for their own safety but most refuse to relocate.
About a mile away in the riverside town of Tavern, Errol Heron rushed back to his home next to the rushing Hope River carrying a loaf of bread. He said he's confident his home will manage Sandy intact since a new retaining wall was built below his property.
"But I'm looking forward to this being over," Heron said Tuesday evening on a bridge in the community.
Jamaica's government issued a hurricane warning on Tuesday morning and announced schools would close on Wednesday. It has urged people in flood-prone areas to be on alert and advised fishermen on outlying cays to return to the mainland. There were reports in local media saying roughly 100 fishermen were stranded on the lobster- and conch-rich Pedro Cays because they didn't have enough fuel for the journey.
In Kingston, Jamaica's biggest city, some residents flocked to grocery stories to stock up on food, propane, tarp, batteries and water. At one major supermarket, hardly any bread remained on the shelves.
In Cuba, authorities issued a hurricane watch for several provinces and there were intermittent rains over Haiti, where a tropical storm warning was in effect. A tropical storm watch was called for the central and southeastern Bahamas, meaning stormy conditions were possibly within 48 hours.
Although Florida was not expected to receive any direct impact from Sandy, Brian Koon, director of the U.S. state's emergency management division, said residents should remain aware of the storm and take precautions to keep themselves safe from indirect impacts such as windy conditions, rain and rip currents.
In Jamaica, Sandy was expected to dump more than 10 inches (25 centimetres) of rainfall, especially over central and eastern parts of the island, according to the country's meteorological service. Flash flooding and landslides are likely on the mountainous island, Jamaican forecasters said.
Sandy's maximum sustained winds Tuesday evening were roughly 50 mph (85 kph). It was moving north-northeast at about 8 mph (13 kph) and its centre was about 225 miles (360 kilometres) south-southwest of Kingston by 8 p.m. EDT.
Sandy on Monday became the 18th named storm of this year's busy Atlantic season, which officially ends Nov. 30.
Meanwhile, U.S. forecasters said a tropical depression in the Atlantic could possibly become a tropical storm later Tuesday or Wednesday. There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect as it spun over open waters some 990 miles (1,590 kilometres) northeast of the Leeward Islands. The depression's maximum sustained winds were near 35 mph (55 kph).
Read more: http://www.cp24.com/world/wary-jamaica- ... z2AAyQJaCK
Vega maybe we can ask it nicelynoshownogo wrote::rofl: Vega maybe we can ask it nicely
~Vēġó~ wrote:wonder if it could come down to east pos when it done with jamaica.....
Bizzare wrote:~Vēġó~ wrote:wonder if it could come down to east pos when it done with jamaica.....
this makes gracist happy for brotherhood will be no more
shake d livin wake d dead wrote:Bizzare wrote:~Vēġó~ wrote:wonder if it could come down to east pos when it done with jamaica.....
this makes gracist happy for brotherhood will be no more
it makes zoom rader happier
Yofoot wrote:It was pretty tame, but i am based in Mobay, I heard Kingston had more wind and rain.
It just rained lightly all day yesterday, saw a few broken tree branches on the road, power went for a few hours, but all in all, just got a day off
I was here when Gustav passed as a tropical storm in 2008 and that to me had more effect and damage.
Hurricane Sandy rages through Bahamas, after killing 29 in Caribbean, en route to US coast
Published October 26, 2012
Associated Press
NASSAU, Bahamas – Hurricane Sandy raged through the Bahamas early Friday after leaving 29 people dead across the Caribbean, following a path that could see it blend with a winter storm to hit the U.S. East Coast with a super-storm next week.
Sandy knocked out power, flooded roads and cut off islands in the storm-hardened Bahamas as it swirled past Cat Island and Eleuthera, but authorities reported no deaths in the scattered archipelago.
"Generally people are realizing it is serious," said Caroline Turnquest, head of the Red Cross in the Bahamas, who said 20 shelters were opened on the main island of New Providence.
Sandy, which weakened to a category 1 hurricane Thursday night, caused havoc in Cuba Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain toppled houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cuba's deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.
Sandy also killed one person while battering Jamaica on Wednesday and 16 in Haiti, where heavy rains from the storm's outer bands caused flooding in the impoverished and deforested country. Police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter.
On Friday morning, the hurricane's center was about 15 miles (25 kilometers) east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 480 miles (770 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. Sandy was moving northwest at 10 mph (17 kph) with maximum sustained winds near 80 mph (130 kph).
Government officials in the Bahamas said the storm seems to have inflicted the greatest damage on Exuma, where there were reports of downed trees, power lines and damage to homes.
With the storm projected to hit the Atlantic coast early Tuesday, there was a 90 percent chance that most of the U.S. East Coast would get steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and maybe snow starting Sunday and stretching past Wednesday, U.S. forecaster Jim Cisco said.
A new tropical storm watch was issued early Friday for a section of the U.S. East Coast extending from Savannah, Ga., northward to North Carolina's Outer Banks.
Sandy was expected to remain a hurricane almost until reaching the U.S. shoreline, probably early Tuesday.
In the Bahamas, power was out on Acklins Island and most roads there were flooded, government administrator Berkeley Williams said.
On Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas, the lone school was flooded.
"We have holes in roofs, lost shingles and power lines are down," said Charlene Bain, local Red Cross president. "But nobody lost a life, that's the important thing."
Steven Russell, an emergency management official in Nassau, said docks on the western side of Great Inagua island had been destroyed and the roof of a government building was partially ripped off.
Sooner Halvorson, a 36-year-old hotel owner from Colorado who recently moved to the Bahamas, said she and her husband, Matt, expected to ride out the storm with their two young children, three cats, two dogs and a goat at their Cat Island resort.
"We brought all of our animals inside," she said, though she added that a horse stayed outside. "She's a 40-year-old horse from the island. She's been through tons of hurricanes."
In an announcement at the end of Cuba's Thursday night newscast, Cuban authorities said the island's 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province.
There were no reports of injuries at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but there were downed trees and power lines, said Kelly Wirfel, a base spokeswoman. Officials canceled a military tribunal session scheduled for Thursday for the prisoner charged in the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole.
In Haiti, Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for the civil protection office, said the country's death toll stood at 16, including some who died while trying to cross storm-swollen rivers in southwestern Haiti. He did not provide specifics of how other people died.
Officials reported flooding across Haiti, where many of the 370,000 people still displaced by the devastating 2010 earthquake scrambled for shelter. More than 1,000 people were evacuated from 11 quake settlements, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Sandy was blamed for the death of an elderly man in Jamaica.
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