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Jamaica braced for Hurricane Ivan yesterday after it devastated Grenada and killed up to 32 people in the Caribbean, on a track that could make it the third hurricane in a month to hit Florida.Half a million Jamaicans were urged to evacuate low-lying areas, including around capital Kingston as heavy rain from the weakened but still-ferocious storm began to fall. In Florida Keys, tourists streamed out of the 160-km island chain in long traffic lines. Floridians, already doused and bruised by Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Frances in the past four weeks, wearily prepared for a possible third big strike in an unusually busy Atlantic storm season. "If Ivan stays on its present track, we will see monumental flooding," said Florida state meteorologist Ben Nelson.
In the immediate path of the storm, which at one point became a rare top-level Category 5 hurricane with catastrophic winds of 260 kmph, Jamaica's 2.7 million people were scrambling to protect their homes and stock up on supplies before it made landfall yesterday night. One man died after apparently heading out to sea in a boat, police said. By 11 am (1500 GMT), Ivan's centre was about 250 km southeast of Kingston at latitude 16.5 north and longitude 75.1 west, the US National Hurricane Centre said. It was moving west-northwest at 19 kmph and its winds had weakened a little to 230 kmph. But forecasters warned it remained a dangerous Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale of 1-5 and could pick up strength again as it approached Jamaica. Ivan killed at least 32 people as it roared through the Caribbean, most of them on the devastated spice island of Grenada. In addition to the death in Jamaica, four people died in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic and one in Tobago. The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency said the death count in Grenada stood at 22, after most of the island's buildings were damaged or destroyed. The US State Department had earlier estimated the storm caused 20 deaths in Grenada. Very few Jamaicans were on the streets yesterday and all businesses in Kingston were closed. Fishermen tied their boats to trees and Washington urged US tourists to get out while they could. The hurricane is expected to cause storm-surge flooding of up to 2.40 metres, with rainfall of up to 25 cm as it lashes Jamaica. This could cause flash flooding and mud slides, the hurricane centre warned. The Cayman Islands, a tiny British colony and key offshore financial centre in the northwestern Caribbean, issued a hurricane warning for its 43,000 people on Thursday, saying hurricane conditions were possible within 24 hours. The centre's long-range forecast had Ivan reaching Cuba, the largest Caribbean island nation, by tomorrow, and Florida on Monday. Tourists fled the Florida Keys while the 80,000 residents of the island chain started to evacuate as Florida faced the third hurricane in a month, following Charley and Frances. Charley killed more than 20 people and caused insured damage of around $7.4 billion after coming ashore in southwest Florida on August 13. Frances, a less-powerful but much bigger storm, killed 19 people and caused damages of between $2 billion and $4 billion after pounding Florida's Atlantic coast last weekend.
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