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Hurricane Isidore heads toward Cuba
( 2002-09-20 11:44 ) (7 )

Waves crash against the harbor in Georgetown, Cayman Islands on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2002. Tropical Storm Isidore tore up trees, flooded coastlines and left Cayman Brac island without electricity Thursday as it moved toward Cuba. [AP]

Hurricane Isidore gathered strength and moved slowly Thursday toward Cuba's western tip and its small Isle of Youth, prompting the government to board up schools and move tens of thousands of people to safer areas.

Isidore, the second Atlantic hurricane of the 2002 season, was expected to drench Cuba's western half through the weekend, with a possible 2 feet of rain, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

Hurricane strength winds extended up to 15 miles out from its center and a hurricane warning was in effect, the second Atlantic hurricane of the 2002 season, across central and western Cuba.

At 8 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Isidore's center was about 75 miles southeast of the Isle of Youth and south of the main island, Miami forecasters said. It was about 160 miles south of Havana.

They said Isidore was moving west-northwest near 8 mph and was expected to stay on that track for another 24 hours, putting it over or near the Isle of Youth early Friday.

Isidore's maximum wind speeds reached 80 mph Thursday afternoon, with higher gusts, forecasters said. Tropical storms become hurricanes when sustained wind speeds reach 74 mph.

While upgrading Isidore's status, the Miami hurricane center also issued a tropical storm watch for the lower Florida Keys.

"Anything in the Gulf of Mexico is a potential target in the next six or seven days," said James Franklin, hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Points at risk extend from the central west Florida coast to New Orleans.

"Or there's even another possibility," Franklin added. "It could turn back west and head toward the Yucatan" peninsula in Mexico.

Cuba's state television said Thursday afternoon that more than 38,000 students were sent home as officials closed boarding schools in the western province of Pinar del Rio. Cuba's communist government regularly asks huge numbers of people to voluntarily evacuate their homes before hurricanes — and virtually everyone complies — in a measure that ensures a low number of casualties.

"This is all programmed, none of this spontaneous," Lt. Col. Astul Castellanos, of Cuba's civil defense program, said of the widespread evacuations regularly conducted here in the face of natural disaster. Most people just seek temporary shelter with family or friends.

Castellanos told Cuban television Thursday night that about 100,000 people and tens of thousands of farm animals in the island's west were moved to safer areas to prevent as little harm possible to life and property.

Elsewhere in the western region, workers rushed to protect the wooden curing houses where precious tobacco leaves are being dried for cigar making, television reports said.

But by the evening, rain was only sporadic in the provincial capital of Pinar del Rio and streets were calm. The only obvious sign that a hurricane was coming was the single white candle that a hotel receptionist gave guests checking in.

A heavy downpour began drenching Havana in the early afternoon and many businesses and offices closed as workers rushed home to secure doors and windows as the storm approached.

Earlier in the day, Isidore uprooted trees and flooded low-lying areas in the nearby Cayman Islands, where tropical storm warning remained in effect.

Gustav, which dwindled out in the north Atlantic earlier this month, was the first hurricane of the 2002 season. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Josephine weakened about 590 miles southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and posed no serious threat, forecasters said.