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Wilma forces Caribbean tourists to flee
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-20 12:56 The strongest Atlantic storm on record, based on pressure readings, had been
Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, which registered 888 millibars.
Wilma was on a curving course that would carry it through the narrow channel
between Cuba and Mexico on Friday, possibly within a few miles of Cancun and
Cozumel. Forecasters warned it could smash into southwestern Florida on Saturday
with towering waves, then work its way up the East Coast with devastating
effect.
Heavy rain, high winds and rough seas pounded coastal areas of Honduras,
knocking out power to some towns, forcing the evacuation of coastal villages and
closure of two Caribbean ports.
Four fishermen were reported missing at sea and about 500 U.S. and European
tourists were moved to safe locations at hotels on the Bay Islands.
The head of Haiti's civil protection agency, Maria Alta Jean-Baptiste, said a
man drowned Wednesday while trying to cross a river that overflowed its banks in
the southern town of Les Anglais. She said another man was swept away by the
fast-moving current but survived.
The death raised to 13 the number of people killed in rain and landslides
since Monday in the island nation. One man also died Sunday in a rain-swollen
river.
Cuban authorities suspended classes in the threatened western province of
Pinar del Rio and prepared to evacuate tourists from campgrounds and low-lying
areas, according to Granma, the Communist Party daily. Heavy rains in the
island's eastern province of Granma forced the evacuations of more than 1,000
people.
Forecasters said Wilma was stronger than the Labor Day hurricane that hit the
Florida Keys in 1935, the most powerful Atlantic hurricane to make landfall on
record.
But disruptive high-altitude winds in the Gulf of Mexico should weaken Wilma
before landfall, said Hugh Cobb, a meteorologist at the hurricane center.
Wilma's track could take it near Punta Gorda on Florida's southwestern Gulf
Coast and other areas hit by Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 storm, in August
2004. The state has seen seven hurricanes hit or pass close by since then,
causing more than $20 billion in damage and killing nearly 150 people.
Forecasters said Wilma should avoid the central Gulf coast ravaged by Katrina
and Rita, which killed more than 1,200 people.
Wilma is the record-tying 12th hurricane of the Atlantic season, the same
number reached in 1969. Records have been kept since 1851. On Monday, Wilma
became the Atlantic hurricane season's 21st named storm, tying the record set in
1933 and exhausting the list of names for this year.
The six-month hurricane season ends Nov. 30. Any new storms would be named
with letters from the Greek alphabet, starting with Alpha.
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