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GEORGE TOWN-Hurricane Paloma pounded the wealthy British Caribbean territory of the Cayman Islands on Friday after strengthening into a dangerously powerful storm, and also posed a serious threat to storm-battered Cuba. Businesses, schools and government offices closed down in the Cayman Islands, a major financial center, while residents shuttered their homes and visitors tried to flee as the late-season storm hurtled northward.Paloma gathered power menacingly fast as it neared Grand Cayman Island and it became a "major," or Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity, with top sustained winds of 115 miles per hour, late on Friday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said."I have been through this so many times that a Category 2 or 3 doesn't really bother me anymore. Anything less than a Hurricane Ivan and I am not worried at all," said Paul Aiken, a Cayman businessman, referring to a ferocious 2004 hurricane that caused extensive damage in the territory.Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 when it came ashore near New Orleans in 2005 and swamped the low-lying U.S. city, but the Cayman Islands and their solid structures are considered less vulnerable to the fierce tropical storms that churn through the Atlantic and Caribbean between June and the end of November each year.Paloma doused Honduras with heavy rains as it formed on Thursday, adding to misery in the impoverished Central American country where the United Nations estimates 70,000 people have been made homeless by recent storms.It posed no threat to U.S. oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico.'BAD DREAM'
The hurricane was expected to reach Cuba late on Saturday, delivering yet another blow to a country that suffered $5 billion in damages from two hurricane strikes this year."It's a bad dream," said store worker Ofelia Hernandez in Cuba's Camaguey province, where the storm was expected to make landfall. "Barely two months and once again in checkmate."The damage has come at a delicate time for Cuba as new President Raul Castro shepherds the communist country following the retirement of aging, and ailing, revolutionary leader Fidel Castro earlier this year, and as world economic woes force Cubans to tighten their belts.Cuban officials said they had evacuated at least 85,000 boarding school students on Friday and would soon begin moving people from flood-prone areas.By 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT Saturday), Paloma was about 25 miles southeast of the eastern end of Grand Cayman and moving north-northeast near 7 mph, the Miami-based hurricane center said.It could yet strengthen a little as it swept by Little Cayman and Cayman Brac islands but would soon encounter environmental conditions that should cause it to weaken before it slammed into Cuba, forecasters said.Rainfall totaling up to 15 inches was expected over parts of the Cayman Islands and its national weather service forecast waves rising up to 30 feet, which would cause dangerous coastal storm surges.
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