Hurricane Dean roars through Caribbean

MIAMI, Aug 18 (Reuters) Hurricane Dean was on the verge of becoming a rare Category 5 storm today as it roared toward Jamaica and the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico after hammering the eastern Caribbean, where it was blamed for at least three deaths.

With top sustained winds of 240 kilometres per hour, Dean was a Category 4 storm, the second highest-level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and capable of widespread destruction.

Dean, the first hurricane of what is expected to be a busy 2007 Atlantic season, blossomed after it raced into the warm Caribbean Sea yesterday after a long trek across the Atlantic.

It was expected to reach verdant, mountainous Jamaica by Sunday after moving south of the Dominican Republic and vulnerable, deforested Haiti, where tropical cyclones frequently trigger killer flash floods and mudslides.

Its progress was being closely watched by energy markets, which have been roiled by hurricanes since powerful storms in 2004 and 2005 disrupted oil and gas production. Energy firms prepared by evacuating workers from offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, home to a third of US domestic crude production.

Storm alerts were in effect for millions of people in the Caribbean's most populous nations -- parts of Haiti, including its teeming capital, Port-au-Prince, the south coast of the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and parts of Cuba.

At 8 am EDT (1730 IST), the center of Dean was located 990 km east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and was moving to the west at 27 kph, the US National Hurricane Center said.

Dean trampled Martinique, St. Lucia and Dominica yesterday as a Category 2 storm, pounding the islands with 160 kph winds and orrential rains that triggered landslides, lifted roofs off houses and knocked out power.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency reported that two people were killed on Dominica when a house was swept away by a landslide, and another died in unknown circumstances in St. Lucia, where hurricane winds ripped the roof off the pediatric ward at Victoria Hospital in the capital, Castries.

Dean destroyed all of Martinique's banana plantations and 70 percent of its sugar cane plantations, France's secretary of state for overseas territories, Christian Estrosi, said.

''In economic terms the damage is large and even dramatic,'' Estrosi said.

A 90-year-old man had died from a heart attack at his home, and six people were injured.

Dean's projected path would put it directly over Jamaica tomorrow and near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula or straight into the Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan Channel by Tuesday.

If it crosses the Yucatan, it could emerge in the southern Gulf and could disrupt operations in the Cantarell Complex of Mexican oil fields, which is one of the world's most productive and supplies two-thirds of Mexico's crude oil output.

Most of the latest computer models showed the storm going ashore in Mexico after crossing the Yucatan. One model had Dean making landfall in southern Texas.

Category 5 hurricanes are as rare as they are powerful.

Until the record-busting 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, records showed only two years -- 1960 and 1961 -- with more than one Category 5 storm.

But in 2005, four hurricanes achieved the top rank on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds over 249 kph at some point -- Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Wilma became the most powerful hurricane ever observed in the Atlantic before it pounded Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula.

From the Dominican Republic and Haiti to the Cayman Islands, fishing boats were ordered into port, tourists scrambled to get out and residents to prepare for the storm.

''We can't get visas for the U.S. because we are from India. So we are going to stay in our townhouse for the storm,'' said Uma Kumar in the Cayman Islands. ''It got a foot a water in it from Hurricane Ivan so if it floods we will move upstairs.'' REUTERS SKB PM1838