Hurricane Jose tears through Caribbean

Storm-weary islanders in neighboring St. Kitts, where a few homes remain roofless from last year's devastating hurricane season, braced themselves as Jose bore down packing 100 mph winds and drenching rain.

In a television broadcast, acting Prime Minister Sam Condor told the people of St. Kitts and Nevis to "prepare for the worst."

"It's projected to move right across the Leeward Islands. All of them are within the direct line of the storm - Montserrat, Antigua, Barbuda, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Anguilla," said meteorologist Bill Frederick of the U.S. Hurr

AP PHOTO Yabureibo Zenon, a medical student in Vieques, Puerto Rico, hangs a "good luck" mobile he made inside a hurricane shelter at the Monte David Camp yesterday.

icane Center in Miami.

There was a strong chance the storm would not reach the U.S. East Coast, meteorologist Michael Formosa said.

Jose was expected to hit the British Virgin Islands before veering to the north, a turn that would save the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The Bahamas were also placed on hurricane alert.

Yesterday afternoon, Jose dumped rain and roiled up dangerous waves on Antigua as it moved northwestward at 12 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 35 miles and were confined to a small area near the center, but were expected to strengthen and broaden. Tropical storm force winds extended another 115 miles.

Jose flattened small palm trees, ripped up utility poles and left Antiguans without power and water service.

At the Yetton Beach Resort outside the Antiguan capital of St. John's, a ferocious wind howled through the cracks in boarded-up doors. A ceiling collapsed in a two-roomed unit of the hotel. No one was hurt in that incident.

The storm also destroyed a newly built Baptist church in the south of the island, ABS radio reported. Prime Minister Lester Bird was expected to dispatch security forces as soon as the storm subsided to prevent looting, the radio said.

In St. Kitts, dozens of tourists tried to flee the hurricane, but airlines began canceling flights late Tuesday and the airport closed yesterday. People shopping for emergency supplies crowded stores until they closed at midmorning.

The island's sole hospital discharged several patients, sent home all but essential staff and moved seriously ill patients into a hurricane-resistant building. Eighty-five percent of the homes on St. Kitts and Nevis were destroyed in 1995 by back-to-back hurricanes Luis and Marilyn. Those islands took another bad hit last year from Hurricane Georges.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Gov. Charles Turnbull announced a curfew from 6 p.m. yesterday. Shops and offices closed at noon.

Many tourists managed to leave the islands, but brothers Jolyon and Nick Fryer of Cincinnati, Ohio, sat reading a book and playing the guitar at the airport Wednesday.

"We're afraid that we might get stuck," said Jolyon Fryer. "We've never lived through a hurricane."

10-21-99