Here's an article from Caribbeannetnews.com on the aftermath so far.
Friday, July 8, 2005
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Hurricane Dennis pummelled Cuba Friday, killing 10 people dead and displacing 1.5 million people, President Fidel Castro announced, after its fierce winds and heavy rains left another five dead in Haiti.
"It is a very strong Category Four, almost a Category Five" the strongest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, Cuban Meteorological Institute chief Jose Rubiera said after Dennis made landfall around 1:00 pm EDT near the central province of Cienfuegos. Winds of up to 149 mph were measured.
Cuban authorities had rushed more than 700,000 people into shelters overnight, including at least 2,500 foreign tourists.
At least three provinces sustained serious material damages, a government source said privately. Homes were destroyed and power was knocked out in Santiago de Cuba, the country's second city on its east end.
Communications towers were toppled and tourist facilities in Santiago province sustained serious damage, the source added.
At 5:00 pm EDT the center of Dennis was located about 95 miles east-southeast of Havana and 145 miles south-southeast of Key West, Florida, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. Maximum sustained winds had decreased to about 135 mph, but the storm was still bringing heavy rain and destructive waves.
Forecasters warned Dennis could pass dangerously close to Key West early Saturday on its way to the Gulf of Mexico where 116 oil platforms and rigs have been evacuated.
The storm crossed Cuba, population 11 million, over central provinces including La Habana -- where the capital of Havana is located -- Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Villa Clara and Sancti Spiritus.
Some 2.2 million people live in the crowded capital, and 669 shelters were opened in Havana province.
The center of the powerful hurricane skirted past the eastern tip of Jamaica Thursday but dumped rain and flooded roads on the island and on parts of southern Haiti.
Cuban authorities were extremely concerned about any hurricane's potential impact on downtown Havana, where hundreds of housing units are in very poor condition and potentially unable to withstand the storm's full force.
On Havana's outskirts, another 100,000 housing units have light, usually zinc roofs that are far from hurricane-proof.
Friday, authorities in Havana scrambled to cancel classes, cultural events and public transport as Dennis approached. Communist Party first secretary Pedro Saez told reporters Havana was expecting storm-surge flooding and building collapses.
People living in high-rises were ordered to lower floors of their buildings. Havana alone has more than 526 buildings more than six stories high, many of them from the 1950s.
In Haiti, at least 20 were injured and 30 remain missing in addition to the five killed.
Most of the victims were in the south and southeast of Haiti where heavy rains caused flooding of cities and destruction of crops in the countryside, according to Jeffe Delorges, a civil protection spokesman. Some 8,000 people were displaced.
In eastern Jamaica, scores of residents were left stranded by floods, and several bridges were severely damaged, though no deaths were reported there.
Thousands of residents meanwhile evacuated Key West, Florida's southernmost city, as well as areas along the US Gulf coast.
Authorities told residents to leave Key West and neighboring areas, and ordered the evacuation of visitors throughout the Florida Keys, a vulnerable chain of islands linked to the mainland by a series of bridges and a single road.
Thousands of people headed to safety, but the evacuation was slowed by early squalls.
Most hotels, gas stations and stores in Key West shut down and numerous homes and businesses were boarded up.
Florida governor Jeb Bush on Thursday declared an emergency in the southeastern US state that was pummeled by four such hurricanes last year.
But NASA decided to go ahead with plans for Wednesday's launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, hundreds of miles (kilometers) north of the hurricane's projected track.
