Hurricane Rips Caymans; Loss Feared Heavy

Hurricane Gilbert blasted the Cayman Islands with 140-m.p.h. winds today after ripping through Jamaica and leaving at least seven dead on its Caribbean rampage.

There were no immediate damage reports from the Caymans because the storm cut off telephone service. But forecasters said they expected heavy destruction.

Radio Cayman said Gilbert killed at least 30 people when it carved a path of destruction across Jamaica on Monday, but the figure could not be independently verified. The seven confirmed dead were in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Grand Cayman--the largest island in the archipelago of 20,000 people--suffered the full fury of Gilbert’s winds as its eye swirled past on a westerly course.

Gilbert was gathering strength as it bore down on the northeastern corner of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, including the resort islands of Cozumel and Cancun. It was expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and could threaten the U.S. and Mexican coasts, forecasters said.

Power, Water Knocked Out

For the second time in less than a week, U.S. oil companies began evacuating thousands of workers from oil rigs off Texas and Louisiana in the face of an approaching hurricane. Hurricane Florence sent rig workers fleeing to the mainland Friday before it fizzled on the Louisiana coast.

Gilbert raked the Jamaican capital of Kingston on Monday with sustained winds of 115 m.p.h., forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate, damaging buildings and aircraft at the airport, knocking out electricity, phone and water service and destroying numerous homes.

“It’s like Beirut in Montego Bay,” Herb Shaumbaum, an amateur radio operator in the U.S. Virgin Islands, said he was told by one of his colleagues in Jamaica.

Roads were flooded across the island, and looting was reported in some areas. Amateur radio operators provided unconfirmed reports of hundreds of homes destroyed, tourist hotels damaged and the roof of a hospital blown away.