Jamaica Braces For Ivan's Wrath

The leading edge of Hurricane Ivan was kicking up heavy rain and winds off Jamaica's eastern tip Friday morning and a large storm surge flooded roads there, a radio station reported.

The government consigned buses to relocate one in five Jamaicans, but some people were refusing to leave, another station reported.

"People here know Ivan is expected to be very bad and no one wants to be caught off guard," reports Ted Scouten of CBS station WFOR-TV, saying Kingston was virtually a ghost town Friday morning.

Ivan, a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 145 mph, was forecast to make a direct hit on Jamaica Friday afternoon.

"We think that it could re-strengthen today before hitting Jamaica or before hitting Cuba," said Lawrence. "Between winds and storm surge flooding, we expect to see a lot of damage anyplace this hurricane would hit, Cuba or Jamaica, or anywhere else."

U.S. officials ordered people to evacuate from the Florida Keys after forecasters said the storm — the fourth major hurricane of the Atlantic season — could hit the island chain by Sunday after crossing Cuba. It was the third evacuation ordered in Florida in a month, following Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Frances.

"This track is very similar to Charley's track from a couple of weeks ago, and you may remember that that track ended up coming into the southwest Florida coast as a very strong hurricane," National Hurricane Center forecaster Miles Lawrence told CBS Radio News. "It's several days before this storm gets near Florida, and a lot of things could happen to the track, as well as the intensity, and we'll just have to wait and see."

Residents and tourists were streaming out of the Florida Keys Friday.

"I've lived here for almost 28 years, and I've never known one that looked this serious, and after what it did to Grenada, I'm just ready to leave," said one resident.

Residents in other parts of Florida were keeping a wary eye on Ivan. The state is still trying to clean up, not only from Hurricane Charley, but also from Frances, and that cleanup may be put on hold yet again, reports CBS News Correspondent Kelly Cobiella.

Charley made its Florida landfall in Punta Gorde, where officials and residents are still trying to clean up the mess, compounded by Frances. Charlotte County Director of Emergency Management Wayne Sallade said morale is slipping.

"It's unprecedented. There is no time in Florida's history that three Category 4 hurricanes threatened this state in just a little over a month," Sallade told CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "People, quite frankly, have had enough. We've got them leaving in great numbers."

"It's a never-ending thing," said Robert Daul on The Early Show.

"Our emergency manager told us to evacuate the area if we're below 15 feet and that's what we plan on doing," said his wife Leigh. "We're going to take our RV and head north and then west. We're getting out of here."

Ivan left Grenada a wasteland of flattened houses, twisted metal and splintered wood as it bore down on Jamaica with deadly winds and monstrous waves, forcing a half million people to flee their homes. The death toll in the Caribbean stood at 23 and was expected to rise.

"The destruction is worse than I've ever seen," said Michael Steele, a 34-year-old resident whose home was destroyed. "We're left with nothing."

Ivan, already the deadliest hurricane to hit Caribbean islands in a decade, unleashed violent winds, downpours and waves across a wide area. It killed 13 people in Grenada, one in Tobago, four in Venezuela, one Canadian woman in Barbados, and four youngsters in the Dominican Republic who were swept away by a giant wave Thursday even though the storm was nearly 200 miles away.

Looting broke out Thursday in Grenada as hundreds of people, including families with children, smashed storm shutters and shop windows to take televisions and shopping carts of food.

Electricity was knocked out on the island of 100,000 people, and homes had no running water or telephone service. Cell phone service was patchy.

Some St. George's University students staying in Grenada said they were afraid of being attacked by looters and had armed themselves with knives and sticks.

"With all the looting going on, they've gotten closer and closer to campus, and have been threatening the students' lives for their belongings, their food, their water, everything," American student Christa Wozniewicz told CBS station KMOX Radio's Jon Grayson.

"We have machetes," she laughed. "That's about it."

Some areas were cut off by fallen trees and debris, suggesting the toll of dead and injured could rise.

In Cuba, President Fidel Castro warned residents to brace for the storm. "Whatever the hurricane does, we will all work together" to rebuild, he said on Cuban television Thursday night, making clear his government would stick with its position of not accepting humanitarian aid from the U.S. government.