Hurricane Paloma batters Cuba

Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 11:11 am

Hurricane Paloma toppled trees, damaged homes and knocked over a communications tower as it ripped through Cuba on Saturday (November 8) after striking the southern coast with 120-mile-per-hour (195-kph) winds as the island’s third major storm of the year.

Forecasters said top winds had dropped to 115 mph (180 kph), still a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, as Paloma headed northeast across Cuba’s mountains. It was expected to weaken further on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

It had grown to a Category 4 with 145-mph (230-kph) winds while barging through the wealthy Cayman Islands, where it ripped roofs off houses and storm shelters and flooded streets, before heading to Cuba.

Cuban state-run television reported widespread blackouts in the storm’s wake and said a communications tower had fallen in the province of Camaguey, where Paloma made landfall on Saturday evening near the town of Santa Cruz del Sur.

Rains of up 10 inches (25.40 cm) were predicted, with heavier amounts possible in mountainous areas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

A storm surge up to 20 feet (6 metres) had caused coastal flooding, pushing the sea as much as 2,300 feet (700 metres) inland and flooding hundreds of homes.

Television reports showed waves whipping up over coastal barriers, a beached boat listing on its side and, on shore, trees bending in the wind.

“The weather is really bad. It’s raining heavily and the wind is blowing strong,” said a woman called Mirtha, who was on watch in the town’s Communist Party headquarters.

“I almost cannot open the windows but I can see some small palm trees that have fallen over,” said the woman, who declined to give her full name.

Paloma, the eighth hurricane of a busy 2008 Atlantic storm season, came on the heels of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which caused an estimated $8 billion in damages when they devastated Cuba within 10 days of each other in August and September.

It was the second most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the month of November and struck almost 76 years to the day after a Nov. 9, 1932, cyclone that killed 3,000 in the same part of Cuba.

Agencies

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Hurricane Paloma batters Cuba

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