Powerful Gustav rips across Cuba, 250,000 evacuate

HAVANA - Cubans returned from shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads Sunday, but no deaths were reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

About 250,000 Cubans were evacuated before Gustav made landfall on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, then again on the Cuban mainland in the region that produces much of the tobacco used to make the nation's famed cigars.

It was just short of top-scale Category 5 hurricane with screaming 140 mph (220 kph) winds as it moved across the island, toppling telephone poles and fruit trees, shattering windows and tearing off the tin roofs of homes.

A Cuban television reporter on the Isla de la Juventud said the storm had felt like "the blast wave from a bomb."

"Buildings without windows, without doors," he said. "Few trees remain standing."

Cuban Civil defense chief Ana Isa Delgado said there were "many people injured" on the island of 87,000 people. Nearly all the island's roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded.

"It's been very difficult here," she said on state television.

But there were no reports of deaths, there or on the mainland.

Gustav earlier killed 81 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

The hurricane weakened slightly after crossing Cuba, slowing to Category 3 status before sunrise Sunday. But it still packed top winds near 120 mph (195 kph) and forecasters predicted it would increase to a Category 4 before making landfall Monday along the U.S. Gulf coast.

More than 1 million Americans made wary by Hurricane Katrina took buses, trains, planes and cars as they streamed out of New Orleans and other coastal cities, where Katrina killed about 1,600 people in 2005.

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, which was devastated by Katrina, issued a mandatory evacuation order and warned that anyone found off their own property after it takes effect can be arrested. Police and National Guard troops were on the streets, preparing to patrol evacuated neighborhoods.

Nagin called Gustav the "mother of all storms" and told residents to "get out of town. This is not the one to play with."

Cuba's top meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said the storm brought hurricane-force winds to much of the western part of Havana, where power was knocked out as winds blasted sheets of rain sideways though the streets and whipped angry waves against the famed seaside Malecon boulevard.

But Sunday morning no flooding could be seen in central Havana, and state radio said the damage was "minimal" in the capital of 2 million people, although southeastern Havana remained without power and natural gas.

Public transportation began running again Sunday morning, as did buses and trains from Havana to the provinces. State radio said schools would open Monday everywhere except Pinar del Rio.

In the fishing town of Batabano, 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of Havana, evacuees returned to their pastel-colored homes to find many surrounded by knee-deep water.

"My house is full of water," said Aldo Tomas, 43, pulling palm branches from his living room. "But we expected more. We expected worse."

Tourist Lidia Morral of Barcelona, Spain, said Gustav forced officials to close beaches the couple wanted to visit earlier this week in Santiago, on the island's eastern tip. The storm also prevented them from catching a ferry from Havana to the Isla de la Juventud on Saturday.

"It's been following us all over Cuba, ruining our vacation," said Morral, who was in line at a travel agency, trying to make other plans. "They have closed everything — hotels, restaurants, bars, museums. There's not much to do but wait."

At 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, the U.S. hurricane center said Gustav was centered about 375 miles (605 kilometers) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 16 mph (26 kph).

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna was projected to move north of the Turks and Caicos Islands by late Sunday, then curl through the Bahamas by early next week before possibly threatening Cuba.

As it spun over open waters, Hanna strengthened slightly and had sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kph) early Sunday. The hurricane center warned that it could kick up dangerous rip currents along parts of the southeastern U.S. coast

credited to Associated Press, Reuters and Yahoo