A satellite image shows Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 25 in the Caribbean. Hurricane Sandy plowed across Cuba as a Category 2 storm after battering Jamaica. NOAA via AFP/Getty Images
HOLGUIN, Cuba -- Hurricane Sandy rumbled across mountainous
eastern Cuba on Thursday as a Category 2 storm, bringing heavy rains and
blistering winds that ripped the roofs off homes and damaged fragile
coffee and tomato crops, but caused no known fatalities on the island.
Two people died elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Even
as it pummeled Cuba's rural eastern half, Sandy refused to lose
intensity as storms normally do when they cross over land, raising fears
that small mountain villages still unheard from might not have been
ready for its wrath.
"It crossed the entire eastern region
practically without losing intensity or structure," said Jose Rubiera,
the island's chief meteorologist.
The U.S. National Hurricane
Center said Sandy emerged off Cuba's northeast coast around dawn and was
moving north at 18 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. It was
expected to remain a hurricane as it moves through the Bahamas.
Santiago,
Cuba's second largest city near the eastern tip of the island, was
spared the worst of the storm, which slammed into the provinces of
Granma, Holguin and Las Tunas.
Some 5,000 tourists at beach
resorts in Holguin were evacuated ahead of the storm, along with 10,200
residents, according to Cuban media. Another 3,000 people in low lying
areas of Las Tunas were moved away before Sandy arrived.
MORE: Hurricane Sandy
State-run media said there was damage to coffee and tomato crops in Granma province but not as bad as had been feared.
Residents
emerged from their homes early Thursday after a night without power,
finding palm trees and some electric poles strewn across roads, blocking
traffic.
Norje Pupo, a 66-year-old retiree in Holguin, was
helping his son clean up early Thursday after an enormous tree toppled
over in his garden.
"The hurricane really hit us hard," he said.
"As you can see, we were very affected. The houses are not poorly made
here, but some may have been damaged."
Still, Pupo said residents
were used to such storms and would take the damage in stride. Cuba's
communist government is known for its rapid response to natural
disasters, and people on the Caribbean's largest island have long years
of experience with hurricanes.
"We'll move forward," Pupo said. "We'll get out of this hole as we have many other times before."
There
were no reports of injuries at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba, but there were downed trees and power lines and all non-emergency
personnel were still confined to their quarters Thursday after a night
of heavy wind and rain, said Kelly Wirfel, a base spokeswoman.
Officials
canceled a military tribunal session that had been scheduled for
Thursday for the prisoner charged in the 2000 attack on the Navy
destroyer USS Cole.
The hurricane center said that Sandy would
likely still be a hurricane as it passes over the Bahamas later in the
day. It also might bring tropical storm conditions along the
southeastern Florida coast, the Upper Keys and Florida Bay by Friday
morning.
A tropical storm warning was extended northward as far as
Flagler Beach and a tropical storm watch was issued for the
northeastern Florida coast.
Sandy also may combine with other
weather systems to create a major storm over the northeastern U.S. next
week, according to federal and private forecasters.
"It'll be a
rough couple days from Hatteras up to Cape Cod," said forecaster Jim
Cisco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration prediction
center in College Park, Maryland. "We don't have many modern precedents
for what the models are suggesting."
As Sandy crossed over Jamaica
on Wednesday an elderly man was killed by a boulder that crashed into
his clapboard house, police said. In southwestern Haiti, a woman died in
the town of Camp Perrin after she was swept away by a river she was
trying to cross, said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, head of the country's
civil protection office.
Jamaican authorities closed the island's
international airports and police ordered 48-hour curfews in major towns
to keep people off the streets and deter looting. Cruise ships changed
their itineraries to avoid the storm, which made landfall Wednesday
afternoon near the capital, Kingston.
In some southern towns on
Jamaica, rushing floodwaters carried crocodiles out of their habitat in
mangrove thickets. One big croc took up temporary residence in a
family's front yard in the city of Portmore.
Stranded business
travelers and a smattering of locals rode out the hurricane in hotels
clustered along a strip in Kingston's financial district. Some read
prayer books or novels, while others watched movies or communicated with
loved ones on computers.
Far out in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm
Tony was weakening and posed no threat to land. The storm had maximum
sustained winds of about 45 mph and was moving east-northeast at 23 mph.
Its center was 835 miles west-southwest of the Azores.
Associated Press