Hurricane Ike batters Cuba for a second day
More than 1 million are evacuated but there are four deaths as 20 inches of rain and 100-mph winds pound Cuba. Reports mount of earlier deaths and destruction in Haiti. Texas could be next.
MIAMI -- Hurricane Ike tore into western Cuba today, dumping up to 20 inches of rain on already ravaged tobacco and sugar cane crops after its destructive romp across the length of the island that left four dead and forced the evacuation of 1.3 million.
Ike's eye skipped south of the populous capital, Havana, where hundreds of thousands were moved to sturdier shelters from the crumbling apartments and bungalows that house most of the city's 2.2 million residents.
Winds of 80 mph continued to rip apart dilapidated buildings, and rains drenched streets and alleys after the Category 2 storm raked the center of the island with 100 mph winds on Monday.
The death toll reported by state television was low but still surprising in the Communist-ruled country where authorities evacuate threatened areas with massive military and civil defense operations.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami reported Ike's second Cuban landfall at 10:30 a.m. in Pinar del Rio Province, where cropland was savaged by Hurricane Gustav little more than a week ago. The center forecast rains of up to 20 inches and warned they could cause "life-threatening flash floods and mudslides over mountainous terrain."
Residents in Texas and northern Mexico braced for Ike's next wallop.
On Monday, Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro proclaimed his country on "combat alert" against the third massive storm to hit the island in as many weeks and what he portrayed as a heartless double standard that blocks U.S. humanitarian aid.
The extent of Ike's damage elsewhere in the Caribbean emerged on Monday, a day after it ravaged the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas as a Category 4 hurricane with winds upward of 135 mph. Ike had triggered more flooding in devastated Haiti, where the death toll from the series of storms was reported as high as 1,000.
In the important Cuban farming and mining areas near Camaguey, news agencies reported that the ferocious winds toppled buildings, including colonial columns that graced the city, a UNESCO-designated historical site.
Exiting into the Caribbean Sea after churning through the eastern provinces of Cuba, Ike slowed its forward motion to about 12 mph, and the hurricane center reported that its sustained winds had subsided to about 80 mph. It remained a Category 1 hurricane when it made its second Cuban landfall today, despite forecasters' concerns it might intensify overnight when it crossed the warm waters off the island's southern coast.
