Georges Hits Caribbean; East Coast Threat Seen

A powerful Hurricane Georges ripped through the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Monday, with winds as great as 130 mph twisting trees from the ground, lifting roofs off houses and churning up 20-foot seas.

By nightfall, the entire island was enveloped by the swirling storm, and downed electric lines had cut power to tens of thousands of Puerto Rico’s 3.8-million residents. At least two deaths were reported.

Severe damage to homes and businesses was reported on the island of Vieques, off the east coast, and to El Conquistador, a luxurious $250-million resort hotel on a bluff overlooking the coast.

Earlier in the day, as the waters along Puerto Rico’s north coast rose and skies darkened, residents of the U.S. commonwealth jammed stores for last-minute emergency supplies and rushed to fortify windows. Some hotels in the Condado resort area ordered guests to evacuate their oceanfront rooms and congregate in interior ballrooms, as hurricane-force winds began to rake the island.

“This hurricane has the characteristics of being the strongest that we have confronted in Puerto Rico in decades,” Gov. Pedro Rossello said. More than 250 shelters were opened in 72 towns across the island.

The government issued a ban on liquor sales, and all flights in and out of the island were canceled.

Even before the storm had finished pounding the island, President Clinton authorized federal disaster relief. Representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were already in place.

In the late afternoon, a wind gust of more than 130 mph was recorded in the town of Fajardo, on the island’s east coast, near the area where the eye of the storm was due to pass. At landfall, sustained winds were measured at 110 mph, and the storm was moving to the northwest at 16 mph.

“It was right out of ‘The Wizard of Oz’--blowing a gale,” reported real estate agent Ted Baker--who lives a block off the beach in Condado, which is part of the San Juan area--after he went out to walk his dog, Diablita, about 4 p.m.

Heavy Damage in St. Kitts, Other Islands

The storm attacked the American islands in the eastern Caribbean after rampaging through the Lesser Antilles overnight, inflicting heavy damage in St. Kitts, Antigua and Barbuda. Outside communication with many of the islands was lost, and thousands of homes were believed to be damaged in Antigua.

On the island of Guadeloupe, a man reportedly was shot and killed by guards while trying to escape from jail after the power was knocked out.

The strengthening hurricane could threaten the U.S. East Coast by the end of the week, according to forecasters at Miami’s National Hurricane Center. A hurricane watch for portions of Florida could be posted as early as today, forecasters said.

“The real concern here is with track,” said Max Mayfield, deputy director of the hurricane center. “If the eye passes over Hispaniola and Cuba, it will weaken. But if the center stays north of the islands, it could regain strength. And that’s something we’re going to have to deal with.”

If Georges does strike the U.S. mainland, it will become the third hurricane of the six-month tropical storm season to make landfall. Hurricane Bonnie went in over Cape Fear, N.C., in August and was blamed for two deaths. Earlier this month, Hurricane Earl lashed the Florida Panhandle.

In St. Croix, the southernmost of the three U.S. Virgin Islands, trees were flattened, boats lifted onto shore by storm surges, and tin roofs went flying. Roy L. Schneider, governor of the American territory of 150,000 people, took to the radio to urge islanders to remain under cover.

In Guanica, a port town on Puerto Rico’s south coast, police Officer David Rodriguez huddled in his boarded-up home at midafternoon with his wife, a neighbor and her two children as waves crashed over the harbor sea wall and the boulder commemorating the site of the U.S. invasion of the island in 1898.

“We hear this is going to be worse than Hugo,” said Rodriguez, referring to the 1989 hurricane that killed more than 27 people along a path through the Caribbean that Georges so far seems to be following. Hugo eventually smashed into Charleston, S.C.

Rodriguez said that he and the town were prepared. But as a police officer concerned with public safety, he said he feared what he might discover in the morning. “These winds are very strong,” he said. “We are sure to lose some metal roofs.”

Hurricane watches were in effect for the north coast of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, as well as the Turks and Caicos Islands. Cuban officials also issued warnings to the residents of that island’s eastern provinces.

The long-range forecast for Georges puts the eye of the storm on Thursday over the southeastern Bahamas, an area of warm waters that could help the storm muscle up for an assault on the U.S. mainland.

Times researcher Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.