KINGSTON, Jamaica — Ernesto became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season Sunday, lashing Haiti's southern coast with heavy rain and threatening to strengthen as it headed toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it could menace a wide swath of coastline including New Orleans.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm, which was packing winds of up to 75 mph, could grow by Thursday into a hurricane as strong as Katrina, which struck the city a year ago Tuesday.
“It's on a track toward the Florida peninsula early this week, and all of Florida is in the area that's being threatened, from the Keys all the way up to the panhandle,” said Michael Brennan, a meteorologist at the centre in Miami.
The storm was moving northwest at 9 mph on a path that would bring it near the tip of Haiti's southwestern peninsula by Sunday night. Forecasters said as much as 20 inches of rain could fall in some mountainous areas, raising fears of life-threatening flash floods in the heavily deforested country.
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A storm surge of 5 feet to 6 feet sent waves crashing into cinderblock homes on the shoreline of Les Cayes, a town 95 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Residents tied goats and cows under thatched huts and fishermen pulled their nets ashore as the wind bent palm trees.
Emergency officials in Haiti had evacuated some residents low-lying areas in the northwest city of Gonaives, which was devastated by Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004.
Ernesto was expected to weaken as it crosses west-central Cuba on Tuesday night but emerge in the Gulf of Mexico with winds up to 110 mph, just below the threshold for a Category 3 storm, Mr. Brennan said.
The storm was expected to bring rain and wind to southern Florida by early Tuesday, and the hurricane centre encouraged people in southern Florida, the Florida Keys island chain and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to monitor the storm. It was projected to strengthen off western Florida on Wednesday but the location of any U.S. landfall was uncertain.
Tourists were ordered to evacuate the Florida Keys immediately because of the storm threat.
Jamaica's Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller put the country's security forces on alert Saturday, but a northward shift in the storm's course kept the strongest winds from affecting the island.
In Cuba, the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde warned Cubans of heavy rain, winds and potential flooding on the southeast coast starting Sunday night. Cattle were moved to higher ground, and workers cleaned gutters and picked rubble off the streets ahead of the storm.
Tourists were evacuated from hotels in the southeastern province of Granma, and baseball games Sunday in Havana were being played earlier than scheduled in the Americas qualifying tournament for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
At 2 p.m. EDT, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season was centred about 105 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, and 165 miles southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba.
The Royal Caribbean cruise line said it was diverting three ships scheduled to depart the United States on Sunday and Monday, sending them to alternative Caribbean ports to avoid the storm.
The hurricane centre said the storm's 75 mph winds pushed it just above the threshold for a Category 1, the weakest category of hurricane. To reach Category 3, Katrina's strength, the winds would have to reach at least 111 mph.
Heavy showers hit Kingston on Saturday afternoon, causing traffic jams as motorists tried to reach stores. People waited in long lines at supermarkets, filling grocery carts with canned goods, batteries and candles.
“It's nature and we can't stop it from taking its course,” said taxi driver Patrick Wallace, 55, as he left a supermarket after stocking up on canned goods.
In Haiti, emergency officials went on local radio to warn people living in flimsy shantytowns on the southern coast to seek shelter in schools and churches. The hurricane centre said Haiti and the Dominican Republic could get up to 20 inches of rain in some places — which could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides.
“These people could be in great danger,” said Adel Nazaire, a coordinator with Haiti's civil protection agency. “Flooding is the biggest concern because a lot of residents live along the rivers and the sea.”
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