The Associated Press
August 28, 2008 02:45 pm
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MIAMI — Tropical Storm Gustav closed in on Jamaica Thursday at near-hurricane strength while Tropical Storm Hanna formed in the Atlantic.
Hanna, the eighth named storm of the 2008 hurricane season, is spinning about 1,500 miles east-southeast of Miami with 40 mph winds. Forecasters said Hanna could grow into a hurricane by Labor Day but likely wouldn’t threaten the U.S. coast until later next week, if at all.
Meanwhile, Gustav’s winds increased to 70 mph from 45 mph overnight as it took a turn toward Jamaica. The center of Gustav was just reaching the island’s eastern shoreline at 11 a.m. EDT, about 45 miles east of Kingston.
Montego Bay, a usually bustling tourist haven, turned into a virtual ghost town with no one on the streets and most businesses locked up for the day. Shoppers filled supermarkets earlier Thursday, stocking up on canned food and candles, which some markets ran out of by 10 a.m.
National Hurricane Center forecasters now expect Gustav to regain hurricane status Thursday as it moves past Jamaica and toward the Cayman Islands. Gustav may continue intensifying over warm water, and forecasters said it could track into the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 3 hurricane by Sunday. The five-day forecast cone projects a landfall Tuesday morning somewhere along the Gulf Coast, from southern Texas to the western tip of the Florida Panhandle.
Jamaica was under a hurricane warning as heavy rain and wind gusts blew across the island. Up to a foot of rain is possible, along with flooding and mudslides, forecasters said. Sixteen emergency shelters were opened in three parishes: Portland, St. Mary and St. Ann.
Jamaicans worried about the storm’s effects on crops and infrastructure. The country was badly beaten up by Hurricane Dean, which passed close to Jamaica as a Category 5 storm last August.
The slow-moving storm could spend the day pounding Jamaica before approaching the Cayman Islands on Friday.
Many visitors have left Grand Cayman and the sister islands although the government has not issued any no mandatory evacuation orders, department of tourism spokeswoman Silvie Snow-Thomas said. Government offices are scheduled to close at 3 p.m.
In Haiti, disaster-relief officials on Thursday waded through flooded, hard-to-reach areas to get a clearer picture on the death toll and damage to crops and infrastructure. Gustav blew through Hispaniola as a Category 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds, causing at least 15 deaths in Haiti and eight in the Dominican Republic.
The question remains: What will Gustav do once it gets over the deep, warm water of the Yucatan Strait and the Gulf of Mexico Sunday? Intensification is likely, and forecasters say Gustav’s winds could exceed 115 mph by the time it makes landfall Tuesday on the Gulf Coast.
Emergency managers and residents throughout the Gulf, including New Orleans, where Friday is the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating landfall, paid close attention to the storm and said they had evacuation plans ready in case Gustav becomes an imminent threat.
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