By Jim Loney
MIAMI, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Hurricane Dean was on the verge of
becoming a rare Category 5 storm on Saturday as it roared toward
Jamaica and the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico after hammering the
eastern Caribbean, where it was blamed for at least three
deaths.
With top sustained winds of 150 miles per hour (240
kilometres per hour), Dean was a Category 4 storm, the second
highest-level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane
intensity, and capable of widespread destruction.
Dean, the first hurricane of what is expected to be a busy
2007 Atlantic season, blossomed after it raced into the warm
Caribbean Sea on Friday after a long trek across the Atlantic.
It was expected to reach verdant, mountainous Jamaica by
Sunday after moving south of the Dominican Republic and
vulnerable, deforested Haiti, where tropical cyclones frequently
trigger killer flash floods and mudslides.
Its progress was being closely watched by energy markets,
which have been roiled by hurricanes since powerful storms in
2004 and 2005 disrupted oil and gas production. Energy firms
prepared by evacuating workers from offshore rigs in the Gulf of
Mexico, home to a third of U.S. domestic crude production.
Storm alerts were in effect for millions of people in the
Caribbean's most populous nations -- parts of Haiti, including
its teeming capital, Port-au-Prince, the south coast of the
Dominican Republic, Jamaica and parts of Cuba.
At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), the center of Dean was located 615
miles (990 km) east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and was
moving to the west at 17 mph (27 kph), the U.S. National
Hurricane Center said.
Dean trampled Martinique, St. Lucia and Dominica on Friday
as a Category 2 storm, pounding the islands with 100 mph (160
kph) winds and torrential rains that triggered landslides,
lifted roofs off houses and knocked out power.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency reported
that two people were killed on Dominica when a house was swept
away by a landslide, and another died in unknown circumstances
in St. Lucia, where hurricane winds ripped the roof off the
pediatric ward at Victoria Hospital in the capital, Castries.
Dean destroyed all of Martinique's banana plantations and 70
percent of its sugar cane plantations, France's secretary of
state for overseas territories, Christian Estrosi, said.
"In economic terms the damage is large and even dramatic,"
Estrosi said.
A 90-year-old man had died from a heart attack at his home,
and six people were injured.
Dean's projected path would put it directly over Jamaica on
Sunday and near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula or straight into the
Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan Channel by Tuesday.
If it crosses the Yucatan, it could emerge in the southern
Gulf and could disrupt operations in the Cantarell Complex of
Mexican oil fields, which is one of the world's most productive
and supplies two-thirds of Mexico's crude oil output.
Most of the latest computer models showed the storm going
ashore in Mexico after crossing the Yucatan. One model had Dean
making landfall in southern Texas.
Category 5 hurricanes are as rare as they are powerful.
Until the record-busting 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, records
showed only two years -- 1960 and 1961 -- with more than one
Category 5 storm.
But in 2005, four hurricanes achieved the top rank on the
Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds over 155 mph (249
kph) at some point -- Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Wilma
became the most powerful hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic
before it pounded Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.
From the Dominican Republic and Haiti to the Cayman Islands,
fishing boats were ordered into port, tourists scrambled to get
out and residents to prepare for the storm.
"We can't get visas for the U.S. because we are from India.
So we are going to stay in our townhouse for the storm," said
Uma Kumar in the Cayman Islands. "It got a foot a water in it
from Hurricane Ivan so if it floods we will move upstairs."
(Additional reporting by Michael Christie and Jane Sutton in
Miami, Manuel Jimenez in the Dominican Republic, Shurna Robbins
in the Cayman Islands, Laure Bretton, Kerstin Gehmlich and
Thierry Leveque in Paris)
