Hurricane Ivan brushes Cuba's edge

PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba -- Whipping winds and walloping waves lashed western Cuba and the communist country's tobacco-growing region Monday, as Hurricane Ivan strengthened to a Category 5 storm -- the most powerful -- and barreled along on a new course toward the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The wall of Hurricane Ivan's eye brushed the tip of Cuba at about 6:45 p.m. as it moved through the Yucatan Channel on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, the island's top meteorologist reported. The slow-moving storm, carrying 160 mph winds, has already killed at least 68 people in the Caribbean and Venezuela and could hit the Florida Panhandle, Louisiana or Mississippi by Wednesday.

The hurricane hit hours after President Fidel Castro stopped to discuss preparations in Pinar del Rio. He said he would not accept any hurricane aid from the United States.

As the hurricane's western edge drenched fields in Cuba's Pinar del Rio province, 20-foot-tall waves still were slamming the sea wall at the port in George Town, Grand Cayman, the wealthy British territory that is a popular scuba diving destination and offshore banking center.

The Associated Press flew over the Cayman Islands on Monday, surveying Grand Cayman, where houses had been reduced to piles of plywood. A hangar at the airport in George Town had its roof blown off. Officials said the airport was not functioning and planes were being turned away.

The only signs of activity on the ground were animals congregating on higher ground.

In Cuba -- despite Castro's bravado -- residents said they feared for their lives.

"The wind blew like it was the end of the world," said Odalys Lorenzo, a community official at a shelter in southwest Cuba. With Hurricane Charley, people thought they would lose all their possessions, but "with this one, they were afraid of losing their lives," he said.

As Ivan moved in, Cuban state television reported waves up to 15 feet crashing onto the southern coast of the Isla de Juventud southwest of the main island. Ham radio operators reported downed trees and power lines, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Ivan swirled toward cropland that produces Cuba's famed cigars, a region still recovering from the effects last month of Hurricane Charley. About 1.3 million Cubans were evacuated from particularly vulnerable areas.

The tobacco crop -- the country's third-largest export -- was safe, according to top grower Alejandro Robaina. Planting doesn't begin until next month, and what remains of the January harvest are protected in curing houses.

"I think we are going to escape the worst of it," Robaina told The Associated Press.

The storm was also expected to deliver strong waves, rain and wind to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to the southwest.

At 8 p.m., Ivan's dangerous eye was just off Cuba's western tip.

Though its hurricane-force winds extend 115 miles and tropical storm-force winds another 220 miles, only about 10 miles of Cuba's sparsely populated western tip was forecast to suffer Ivan's devastating top winds, said Stacy Stewart, a hurricane specialist at the Hurricane Center.

It looked like part of the eye would cross the island, "not technically a direct hit but near enough," Stewart said. The entire eye must hit land for the hurricane to be considered to have made landfall.

The Hurricane Center warned of coastal storm surge flooding of up to 25 feet above normal tides with "large and dangerous battering waves" east of where it might make landfall. It also warned of life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.

Ivan was moving toward the north-northwest at 9 mph, with a more northwestward motion expected.

Although some forecasters predicted the storm would weaken Tuesday over the cooler waters of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Coast residents spent Monday boarding up their houses, tying up their boats and making plans to evacuate. Emergency officials in several Florida Panhandle counties were expected to decide Monday on evacuating fishing villages and beach communities.

At times along its wobbly path, forecasters had predicted Ivan could make direct hits on either the Florida Keys or populous South Florida, only to see it veer west of both areas.

Only three Category 5 storms are known to have hit the United States. The last was Hurricane Andrew, which hit South Florida in 1992, killing 43 people and causing more than $30 billion in damage.

Including Cuba, Ivan will have swirled across 11 countries. It has killed at least 39 people in Grenada, 15 people in Jamaica, five in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic, three in Haiti, one in Tobago and one in Barbados.