By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
Sept. 10, 2008, 1:32PM
HAVANA — Hurricane Ike grew stronger as it barreled across the warm,
energizing waters of the Gulf of Mexico today toward the Texas coast
after crashing through Cuba's tobacco country and toppling aging Havana
buildings.
Forecasters said the now-Category 2 storm could become a major Category
3 hurricane before slamming into Texas or northern Mexico on Saturday.
Ike has already killed at least 80 people in the Caribbean, and Texas
put 7,500 National Guard members on standby and urged coastal residents
to stock up on supplies. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency
was uncertain when it could begin evacuations along the coast.
Cuban state television said some 2.6 million people — nearly a fourth of
the island's population — sought refuge from Ike, which killed four
people as it swept across the length of the country. Power was still
mostly out in Havana today.
Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura said the storm damaged at
least 27,000 homes in eastern Cuba, but that tally will rise sharply
because it does not include Havana or many other regions where officials
are still battling flood waters as they struggle to catalog losses.
Cuba also announced that the hurricane "obligated a gradual decrease in
nickel production," which replaced tourism last year as the island's top
foreign exchange earner.
On the capital's Malecon coastal highway, crews tried to rescue an
elderly man from beneath a pile of rubble outside his apartment building.
Firefighter Lt. Col. Rolando Menendez said the man, still believed to be
alive, returned to his seaside home without official approval and a
concrete piece of the building's fourth floor slipped loose and fell on him.
As it left Cuba, Ike delivered a punishing blow to western towns such as
Los Palacios, which already suffered a direct hit from a Category-4
Hurricane Gustav on Aug. 30.
In a poor neighborhood along the train tracks, the combined fury of Ike
and Gustav left nearly two-thirds of the wooden homes leveled or without
roofs.
"The first one left me something, but this one left me nothing," said
Olga Atiaga, a 53-year-old housewife. Gustav obliterated her roof and
some walls. Then Ike blew away a mattress and smashed the kitchen sink.
"I don't even have anything to sleep on," she said.
Odalis Cruz, a 45-year-old housing inspector, said she evacuated to a
shelter in the town's rice mill when it became clear Ike was following
Gustav's path through Pinar del Rio, the westernmost province where Cuba
produces tobacco used in its famous cigars.
She surveyed the damage to her home Tuesday.
"We repaired the roof two days ago and this one took the new one," she
said. "I'm ready to move to Canada! We have spent eight days drying out
things, cleaning everything, sleeping on the floor, and now we are hit
again."
Gustav damaged at least 100,000 homes but didn't kill anyone because of
massive evacuations. Cubans were ordered to evacuate for Ike as well,
with those in low-lying or wooden homes seeking safety with friends or
relatives in sturdier structures. Others were taken to government shelters.
State television said Ike killed at least four people in eastern Cuba.
Two men died while removing an antenna from a roof, a woman was killed
when her home collapsed and another man was killed by a falling tree.
Evacuations are not mandatory except for pregnant women and small
children, but in an authoritarian state, few people ignore the
government's advice.
In Havana, towering waves broke over the Malecon as downpours soaked
historic but crumbling buildings in the capital's picturesque older
areas. Some of the most dilapidated structures collapsed, including four
houses on a single block.
Police told 21-year-old Niyel Rodriguez she had to move to a shelter
with her 19-day-old daughter Chanel. She huddled Tuesday with 109
expectant and new mothers and their children in a wing of an Old Havana
maternity hospital.
"They came looking for me yesterday and brought me here in a patrol
car," Rodriguez said. "I probably would have been scared to stay at home
with my little one, and here they take good care of us."
Elsewhere, officials evacuated about 10,000 tourists from vulnerable
seaside hotels, mostly from Varadero beach, east of Havana.
Ike's possible threat to Gulf oil installations didn't keep crude oil
prices from dipping more than US$1, to US$102.15 a barrel, in
late-morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Both Ike and Gustav damaged buildings in Pinar del Rio associated with
tobacco production, but the tobacco crop was spared because it is not in
season.
Mexican officials warned that unrelated heavy rains in the northern part
of the country had caused more than a dozen dams to reach capacity or
spill over. If Ike brings more rain to the area, evacuations may be needed.
Ike was centered about 255 miles west-southwest of Key West, Florida,
and about 395 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi
River late this morning. It was generally moving northwest at 8 mph (13
kph) and its maximum sustained winds have grown to 100 mph.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Lowell weakened to a tropical depression off
Mexico's Pacific coast and it was expected to move across the Baja
California Peninsula Wednesday night or Thursday morning. It had maximum
sustained of near 35 mph (55 kph).
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