One Million Urged To Flee As Hurricane Charley Slams Into Cuba

by Juliette Guilbert
MIAMI, Aug 13 (AFP) - Millions of people have been urged to flee the path of Hurricane Charley as it barreled through western Cuba early Friday with winds of 165 kilometers (103 miles) per hour on its way to the southern US state of Florida.
A category two hurricane, Charley made landfall at 0415 GMT some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Havana, and was expected to take two hours to cross over the Cuban capital and head out to sea again on its way to Florida, Cuba`s Meteorology Institute said.
Some 200,000 residents and 2,000 tourists have been evacuated from western Cuba, as two million Havana residents braced for the storm with military-like discipline born of fending off some 50 storms in 80 years.
Authorities set up shelters with food and doctors, and shut off electricity as a precaution, local reports said.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, on his 78th birthday, visited the Meteorology Institute late Thursday to follow the trajectory of the hurricane, the edges of which has pelted the island with rain since midday Thursday.
In most of the Florida Keys, the string of islands extending from the southernmost tip of Florida, and for a large swath of the southwestern coast hurricane warnings have been posted.
The US National Hurricane Center warned of storm surge flooding of up to 10 feet (three meters) along the Florida coast, with potential flash floods and mudslides. Charley could also spawn tornadoes, Florida county officials said.
"This has the potential of being the one we`ve all been warning about," Florida Governor Jeb Bush said.
"It`s going to cut a swath through the state that`s going to impact millions of people."
US and Cuban weather authorities said conditions were right for Charley to develop into a Category 3 storm, with winds of 209 kilometers (130 miles) per hour.
The hurricane was expected to hit the Florida coast early Friday, and the state government ordered thousands of people to leave the Keys, which are now at the peak of their tourist season.
The evacuation order by the state government extended up Florida`s Gulf coast to Tampa Bay, as Charley was predicted to strike cities as far north as Tampa, and Jacksonville, Florida`s northernmost east coast city of 800,000 people.
Hurricane Charley missed Jamaica but came close to the Cayman Islands, the small British colony, forcing the closure of its main airport. Tourists helped sandbag shore defenses against huge waves, local media said.
Charley comes on the heels of tropical storm Bonnie, which hit the Florida panhandle Thursday with heavy rains.
Florida residents rushed to buy plywood to board up windows of homes, restaurants and stores.
At KLI True Value Supply, a hardware store in Key Largo, one worker described the scene in the store Thursday as "very, very busy" but said the mood was generally calm.
Oil companies were forced by the weather to cut production by about 420,000 barrels Wednesday, equal to one-quarter of the total production from the Gulf of Mexico, the Department of Interior said.
The hurricane also forced ChevronTexaco to continue evacuating oil and gas platforms in the central and eastern gulf.
"The latest information I have is that we`ve evacuated 20 platforms, two drilling rigs," ChevronTexaco spokesman Matt Carmichael told AFP.
The hurricane meant ChevronTexaco missed 114,961 barrels of daily oil production and 169,551 million cubic feet of natural gas, Carmichael said, adding that 711 employees had been evacuated from platforms.