Tropical Storm Paloma Churns Over Cuba
Date: 10-Nov-08
Country: CUBA
Author: Jeff Franks
The National Hurricane Centre in Miami said Paloma, the third hurricane to hit Cuba this year, still had top winds near 60 miles per hour (95 kph) and was located over the eastern central province of Camaguey.
But the Cuban weather service said the storm did not even qualify now as a tropical depression and stopped issuing advisories.
Cuba chief hurricane forecaster Jose Rubiera said light winds and rains were all that were left of the storm that came ashore in southeastern Cuba on Saturday evening as a Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph (193 kph) winds.
Both services agreed that winds high in the atmosphere were tearing Paloma apart.
The US hurricane centre said the storm was moving at just 2 mph (3 kph) and it had dropped tropical storm warnings for the Bahamas, which had been projected as Paloma's next destination.
At its peak on Saturday in the Caribbean Sea, Paloma was a menacing Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale with 145 mph (230 kph) winds.
Before reaching Cuba, Paloma ripped across the Cayman Islands, causing damage and flooding on smaller islands of the wealthy British territory.
The storm struck Cuba on Saturday evening and began what has become a slow trek across the island.
Sketchy damage reports told of downed power and telephone lines, toppled trees, damaged homes and coastal flooding. A communications tower near the coast had been knocked over, Cuban officials said.
ANOTHER BLOW
In Santa Cruz del Sur, where Paloma made landfall, a 13-foot (4-metre) storm surge had pushed seawater nearly a mile (1.5 km) inland, damaging homes in an area populated by 10,000 people.
Rainfall of up to 15 inches (40 cm) was reported in some areas, causing local flooding.
The Cuban government declared on Sunday that the recovery phase had officially begun in Camaguey and that alerts for the rest of the country had been lifted.
Cubans in the storm-stricken area said Paloma was a difficult storm because they were still picking up the pieces after major hurricanes Gustav and Ike devastated the island in August and September.
Gustav slammed the Isle of Youth and westernmost Pinar del Rio province with 150 mph (230 kph) winds, while Ike hit eastern Cuba with 120 mph winds (195 kph) and rampaged through much of the island.
Government officials have estimated that the two storms damaged almost 450,000 homes, destroyed 30 percent of Cuba's crops and caused $8 billion in damage to an economy that was already struggling with rising fuel and food import costs and the effects of the global financial crisis.
"Here I am in the dark (without electricity), under the wind and the rain for the second time in two months. It has been years since we had this situation," said retiree Roberto Hernandez in Camaguey.
"It was less than Ike and I hope it's the last one," said school teacher Iris Mendoza, also in Camaguey. "It's the second time they made me spend the night without sleeping, watching to see if the roof fell in."
Paloma was the eighth hurricane of a busy Atlantic hurricane season, which officially ends Nov. 30.
It was the second most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the month of November and struck 76 years after a Nov. 9, 1932, cyclone that killed 3,000 in the same part of Cuba.
Cuba said hundreds of thousands of people had been evacuated ahead of Paloma. So far, no deaths or major injuries had been reported.
(Editing by Eric Beech)