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As Wilma moves on, Alpha gathers strength

Cubans are evacuated by bus on Saturday in Arroyos de Mantua, 230km west of Havana, Cuba. According to authorities, 195,600 people were evacuated as weather experts struggled to anticipate when and where the erratic, lumbering Wilma would strike next. Though it weakened in the early hours and was downgraded to a Category 2 storm, Wilma packed enough punch to fell trees and tear off roofs in Cancun, Mexico, as tens of thousands of tourists and residents cowered in emergency shelters. PHOTO: AFP

Hurricane Wilma inched away from the Yucatan Peninsula on Saturday night as furious winds and rain continued to punish Mexico's Caribbean coastline, where at least three people were killed.

Flood waters forced tourists in hotels and shelters to climb to higher floors, as Wilma ripped away storefronts and peeled back roofs.

Wilma had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 160kph as it crawled northward, but was expected to pick up speed and strength yesterday, sideswiping Cuba before it slams into Florida. The hurricane's center was located 85km north of Cancun late on Saturday night.

After a lull, violent winds and rains slammed Cancun again after dark on Saturday, pushing flood waters even higher. The hurricane sent water surging over the narrow strip of sand housing the city's luxury hotels and bars, joining the sea with the resort's alligator-infested lagoon on Saturday.

Lobbies were gutted as waves from the open sea slammed into some low-lying hotels, Quintana Roo state Governor Felix Gonzalez announced.

Cancun residents had ventured briefly from their hiding spots to survey the flooded, debris-filled streets as the eye of the storm passed the famous resort. Wilma's winds returned and continued to make reconnaissance by authorities almost impossible.

Several dozen people looted at least four convenience stores, carrying out bags of canned tuna, pasta and soda, while others dragged tables, chairs and lamps from a destroyed furniture store. Police were guarding only larger stores, including a downtown Wal-Mart and an appliance store. Downtown Cancun was littered with glass, tree trunks and cars up to their roofs in water. The front half of a Burger King had collapsed, and at least one gas station had its roof blown away.

Yucatan Governor Patricio Patron told Formato 21 radio that one person was killed by a falling tree, but he offered no details. And in Playa del Carmen, two people died from injuries they sustained Friday when a gas tank exploded during the storm, Quintana Roo state officials said. The storm earlier killed 13 people in Jamaica and Haiti.

Quintana Roo State Civil Protection Director Major Jose Nemecio said a few emergency crews were able to begin distributing emergency supplies in Playa del Carmen, to the south of Cancun, where screaming winds had flattened wood-and-tarpaper houses.

On the island of Cozumel, which has been isolated since weathering the brunt of the storm on Friday, fruit and vegetable salesman Jorge Ham, 26, said that winds had dropped significantly.

In Cancun, the wind ripped part of the ceiling off a gymnasium-turned-shelter, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people late on Friday. Over 120 people were moved to a kindergarten where evacuees were forced to use plastic water bottles instead of bathrooms and sleep on miniature desks nearly submerged in rising flood waters. There was no food.

President Vicente Fox planned to travel to the affected region yesterday. The army and navy prepared to move in emergency supplies, including food, water, medicine and roofing.

The US Embassy was sending consular officials to shelters yesterday, an effort to help people prepare for the evacuation of some 30,000 tourists after the storm. The US government also offered to donate US$200,000 in hurricane aid.

In Cuba, the government evacuated more than 500,000 people, while a tornado spun off from the storm flattened 20 homes and several tobacco-curing huts.

Officials posted a hurricane watch for the entire southern Florida peninsula, the Florida Keys, Florida Bay and the Dry Tortugas ahead of Wilma.

At the same time, a new tropical storm named Alpha bore down on the Dominican Republic early yesterday, making this year's Atlantic hurricane season the most active on record, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

The NHC does not use the letters X, Y or Z to name storms. This is the first time it has exhausted the Roman alphabet and has had to resort to the Greek one to name storms in the Atlantic basin.

Alpha was traveling in a northwesterly direction at nearly 22kph. It was expected to make landfall on the island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti late yesterday.

From there a three-day forecast showed it hitting the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southern Bahamas, then veering northeast over the Atlantic Ocean. Alpha was not expected to hit the US.
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