A strengthening Hurricane Irene is lashing the northern coast of the Dominican Republic and it was moving toward the west-northwest on Tuesday morning.
At 5 a.m., the National Hurricane Center reported that as a Category 2 storm, Irene had sustained winds near 100 mph. Forecasters issued a hurricane watch for the northern coast of Haiti from Le Mole St. Nicholas eastward to the border. Turks and Caucos Islands, the
Bahamas and the rest of Haiti are under a hurricane warning.
Over the next few days, forecasters expect the storm to grow more dangerous and damaging, as it intensifies into a major Category 3 hurricane by Thursday afternoon. At that point, the official forecast track would put Irene — potentially churning 115 mph winds — near
Andros Island and about 130 miles southeast of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
On Monday, Irene had began to ease away from the northwestern Caribbean, leaving nearly one million people in the dark in Puerto Rico, a billionaire’s mansion torched by lightning in the British Virgin Islands and fears of a dark night of drenching rain and floods across Hispaniola.
Unfortunately, that appeared to be only a warm-up for worse.
South Florida remained in the cone of probability, though trends in computer models suggested the threat was lessening here and increasing for the Carolinas.
Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the hurricane center, said Irene’s projected path paralleling the Florida coast meant that a slight wobble or delay in an expected northward turn could push the powerful core from offshore onto a densely developed shoreline.
“The stakes are high because it would take just a slight shift in the track to the left to make a dramatic change in the impact of the storm in a hugely populated area,’’ he said.
The impact could be serious wherever Irene makes landfall. With little but warm water and favorable winds in its path, forecasters expected the storm to steadily intensify. Along with gusts and heavy rains, Irene also will be pushing a five- to eight-foot storm surge into the southeastern Bahamas that could reach seven to 11 feet by the time it reaches the Central Bahamas.
Even as a tropical storm, Irene proved damaging. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries in the northwestern Caribbean, but its passage across Puerto Rico plunged half the island into darkness.
Things began returning to normal in Puerto Rico late in the day, with San Juan’s major shopping mall reopening, but dozens of roads remained impassable and several communities were flooded or cut off. At least three rivers had burst their banks. The Plata River was most worrisome, authorities said.
“As long as it is still raining in the mountains, we’re still worried,” Gov. Luis Fortuño told El Nuevo Día newspaper.
Puerto Rico Emergency operations director Mauricio Rivera told The Miami Herald that by late Monday afternoon, more than half the island still had no electricity and 28 percent of the population was without running water. The island of Vieques remained completely without power.
“I call what we had an ‘almost-hurricane,’ ” Rivera said. “It brought a lot of rain, a lot of wind, and quite a few electrical poles fell and so did trees. The situation is returning to normal. It’s raining, but mostly just drizzling.’’
Still, callers bombarded local radio stations with complaints, reiterating that the island would not be prepared for a stronger storm.
“Every time two drops fall, we’re left without electricity,” a caller told Radio Isla. “And I’m talking about Guaynabo City, not some rural countryside.”
South Florida airports reported 26 cancellations due to the hurricane.
In the British Virgin Islands, billionaire Richard Branson, the flamboyant owner of Virgin Air, reported that his luxury home went up in flames during Irene’s passage, forcing actress Kate Winslet and about 20 other guests to flee.
Branson, reported the blaze and posted photos on his personal blog, citing a lightning strike as the tropical storm raked Necker Island around 4 a.m. Monday. None of the 20 guests were hurt, he said, and Winslet, an Oscar-winner who became a star with her appearance in the 1997 movie Titanic, pitched in to help his 90-year-old mother evacuate.
Though Irene’s jog northwest put its strongest winds and heaviest rains off the coast of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic and Haiti still were bracing for heavy rains along the north region, with three to six inches projected and more in spots, but also hoping that Irene’s jog north would limit potentially deadly flooding and mudslides.
In Haiti, the greatest threat wasn’t in the capital city filled with some 600,000 earthquake refugees but in the northern region where past storms have triggered flooding and mudslides that have killed thousands.
"In the coming days, we can have flooding throughout Haiti," Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, the head of the Civil Protection Department said.
"Let’s fight so we can save lives. Let’s take precautions."
Flooding also could worsen the country’s cholera epidemic, which has already left 6,000 Haitians dead.
Miami Herald staff writer Hannah Sampson contributed to this report..
