Hurricanes Imperil Coasts Hortense Sets Its Sights On Northeastern States
Packing 140-mph winds, Hurricane Hortense took a swipe at the Turks and Caicos islands and barreled past the Bahamas Thursday on a track that could threaten the northeastern United States over the weekend.
In Puerto Rico, where at least 14 people died in the storm Tuesday, residents and work crews continued their arduous cleanup - from sorting through soiled clothing to clearing roads and bridges.
Their misery was compounded by widespread water and power outages - about 40 percent of the island’s 3.6 million people still had no power Thursday - but federal help was on the way. More than 7,600 people were registered at 115 shelters Thursday.
A U.S. Air Force hurricane-hunter plane recorded sustained winds of about 140 mph, making Hortense a very dangerous Category 4 storm. A Category 5 storm is the most dangerous.
At 8 p.m. PDT, the center of Hortense was centered about 645 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. It was moving north at 15 mph, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 70 miles from its center.
Heavy surf from the storm could reach southeastern U.S. shores today, and there was a slight chance the storm could threaten Long Island, N.Y., Rhode Island, or Cape Cod, Mass., on Sunday, forecasters said.
Hortense was expected to continue north and increase speed to 20 mph today, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The hurricane pounded the Turks and Caicos islands with 90-mph winds but inflicted little serious damage, and no injuries were reported. In the Bahamas, residents stowed property and boarded up windows for the second time in two weeks - Hurricane Fran narrowly missed the islands last week - only to awaken Thursday to sunny skies.
The death toll from Hortense reached 16 Thursday with the discovery of a man’s body near the Rio Grande river in the northeastern Puerto Rican town of Loiza. Another body was recovered from a beach in Patillas in southeastern Puerto Rico late Wednesday.
The storm, which delivered as much as 20 inches of rain, also killed two in the Dominican Republic. Most of the victims drowned.
President Clinton declared four Puerto Rican towns disaster areas, making residents eligible for federal grants, low-interest loans and emergency housing. More towns could be added to the list as Federal Emergency Management Agency officials survey the island.
Most of San Juan, the capital, was in darkness Wednesday night. Food spoiled in refrigerators, and those lucky enough to have water often had a mud-colored liquid emerge from the tap. Residents endured long lines in up to 90-degree heat for such essentials as ice and drinking water.
A melee erupted Thursday among hundreds waiting in line for ice in the southern city of Ponce. Police quickly halted the fighting.