Gustav Slams Cuba's Tobacco Region

Source from:  denverpost.com By The Denver Post 08/31/2008 09/02/2008

The nearly top-scale storm may grow as it heads toward the U.S. Gustav slammed into Cuba's tobacco-growing western tip as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane Saturday, while Cubans and Americans scrambled to flee the storm as it roared toward the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans. Forecasters said Gustav was just short of becoming a top- scale Category 5 hurricane as it hit Cuba's mainland after roaring over its Isla de Juventud province, where it toppled telephone poles and mango and almond trees and peeled back the tin roofs of homes. Isla de Juventud civil defense chief Ana Isla said there were "many people injured" on the island south of mainland Cuba but no reports of deaths. She said nearly all its roads were washed out and some regions were heavily flooded. "It's been very difficult here," she said on state television. Authorities evacuated at least 240,000 people from western Cuba, including Isla de Juventud. Gustav has killed 81 people in other Caribbean nations. By late Saturday night, Gustav's eye was speeding over Cuba and was expected to soon reach the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm could then get even stronger, becoming a Category 5 hurricane with winds above 155 mph. Cuba's top meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said the hurricane's massive center made landfall in mainland Cuba near the community of Los Palacios in Pinar del Rio - a region that produces much of Cuba's famed tobacco. Cuba grounded all domestic flights and halted all buses and trains to and from Havana, where some shuttered stores had hand-scrawled "closed for evacuation" signs plastered to their doors. In the Gulf of Mexico, where about 35,000 people work on offshore rigs and production facilities, oil companies wrap ped up evacuations in preparation for the storm. As of midday Saturday, more than three-fourths of the gulf's oil production and nearly 40 percent of its natural-gas output had been shut down, according to the U.S. Minerals Management Service. Enditem