Wilma soaks western Cuba

Wilma soaks western Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- Hurricane Wilma drenched western Cuba with heavy rains Sunday and flooded evacuated communities along the island's southern coast after clobbering Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and taking aim on storm-weary Florida.
President Fidel Castro appeared on television to calm Cubans anticipating increased winds and potential overnight flooding on the northern coast. He also offered doctors to Mexico to help the neighboring nation recover from the natural disaster.
"It's the appropriate time to offer the people of Mexico the support they need," he said late Sunday on Cuban TV public affairs program "Mesa Redonda," or "Round Table."
Cuba has recently sent 400 doctors to Guatemala after Hurricane Stan's devastating passage through Central America, as well as some 200 doctors to Pakistan after the October 8 earthquake that killed tens of thousands.
Castro praised the island's efficiency in hurricane preparation, saying that despite scarce resources, Cuba has become internationally recognized as "a model country that protects the lives of its citizens."
Cuba prides itself on saving lives during frequent hurricanes affecting the island, and its civil defense plans have been held up by the United Nations as a model for other nations. Mandatory, widespread evacuations are common and face little resistance.
The government in recent days evacuated more than 625,000 people, particularly in the island's west, as Wilma stalled off the Yucatan coast.
Some people were ordered by civil defense officials to leave their homes as early as Wednesday, with most staying with friends and relatives, and the rest at shelters set up at schools and other government buildings.
Cuban state television reported Sunday that the ocean had penetrated up to 2/3 of a mile (1 kilometer) in some southern coastal communities.
Guanimar, a small fishing village of brightly painted wooden houses due south of Havana, was totally under water Sunday, with floodwaters as high as 3 feet in some places. The community frequently floods during hurricanes and its several hundred residents were evacuated as a precaution in recent days.
In another southern coastal community, Playa Cajio, the penetrating sea carried numerous fish up onto the main highway, state television said.
Earlier in the day, Cuba's communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde declared "The Worst is Yet to Come" in a headline in its Sunday edition.
Rainfall of up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) was possible in some parts of western Cuba when Wilma passed the island, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Cuban authorities were especially worried about coastal flooding across the northern coast of the island's western provinces of Pinar del Rio and Havana starting late Sunday and continuing into Monday.
One key point of concern was Havana's Malecon seawall, which high waves can spill over during hurricanes and flood the adjacent coastal highway and neighborhoods of old, multistoried buildings.
Alcohol sales in Havana, home to 2 million people, were shut down Sunday afternoon, and all stores closed. Local civil defense officials said the government would switch off electricity in Havana -- a standard safety procedure -- if Wilma's high winds were considered dangerous to the capital.
Wilma was not expected to make landfall in Cuba as it moved past the island's northern coast, but did spin off several tornados over the weekend that left six injured and destroyed more than 20 homes and tobacco curing houses in the country's western tobacco-growing region.
Localized sporadic rains have fallen in western Cuba in recent days, saturating the soil and filling some reservoirs. But especially heavy and continuous rains soaked the region Sunday as Wilma began sideswiping the island's northern coast.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/10/23/wilma.cuba.ap/