Gustav swells to category 3 storm

HAVANA (AP) – Gustav swelled to an increasingly fearsome Category 3 hurricane with winds of 125 mph (205 kph) on Saturday, prompting Cuba to evacuate more than 200,000 people even as Americans to the north clogged highways fleeing New Orleans.

Gustav already has killed 78 people in the Caribbean and the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it could become at Category 4 hurricane after hitting Cuba on Saturday and entering the warm Gulf of Mexico on a projected course for he Katrina-battered U.S. coast.

Cuba canceled all buses and trains to and from Havana, as well as ferry and air service to the Isla de Juventud, the outlying Cuban island-province next in Gustav’s path.

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Heavy winds had already felled mango and almond trees and were shaking the roofs of buildings on the province, said Ofilia Hernandez, who answered a community telephone near downtown Nueva Gerona, Isla de la Juventud’s largest city.

“Everyone’s at home. It’s getting very ugly,” she said. “All night last night there was wind, but not like now. Now it’s very strong. Things are starting to fall down.”

The government’s AIN news agency said officials were evacuating some 190,000 people from low-lying parts of tobacco-rich Pinar del Rio province on the western tip of Cuba’s main island. AIN reported that tens of thousands already had been evacuated further east in Cuba.

Stiff winds whipped intermittent rains across Havana, where police officers in blue and orange rain coats supervised workers removing stones, tree branches and other debris from the storied beachfront Malecon, as angry waves crashed against the sea wall below.

Yellow school buses lined up outside low-lying neighborhoods, ready to evacuate thousands of residents to shelters on higher ground.

The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, was hundreds of miles (kilometers) to the east, out of the storm’s path.

Gustav rolled over the Cayman Islands Friday with fierce winds that tore down trees and power lines while destroying docks and tossing boats ashore on Little Cayman Island.

But there was little major damage and no deaths were reported. More than 1,100 people spent the night in government shelters.

Two people were knocked down by huge waves as they tried to take pictures of the storm on Little Cayman, but there were no other immediate reports of injuries, said Hemant Balgobin, disaster manager for the Red Cross in the British territory.

“The wind was a little nerve-wracking, the howling. But it turned out OK,” said Meagan Call, who rode out the hurricane in her hotel room. She had come to George Town from the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica to assist U.S. citizens.

By early Saturday, Gustav was about 185 miles (295 kilometers) east of the western tip of Cuba and just 55 miles (85 kilometers) east-southeast of the Isla de Juventud. It was expected to be moving northwest near 14 mph (22 kph).

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