Ernesto lashes Caribbean

LES CAYES, Haiti – Ernesto became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season Sunday then weakened to a tropical storm as it lashed Haiti’s southern coast with heavy rain and flooded homes in the impoverished country.

But the storm was projected to regain strength as it steamed toward Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico and forecasters said it could again reach hurricane force before striking Cuba this morning.

“We do expect it to reach the Gulf, maybe as a Category 1 hurricane, possibly a Category 2,” said John Cangialosi, a meteorologist with the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. “We expect it to be a significant system as it moves over Florida.”

It was uncertain where Ernesto would make landfall as it moves toward the Gulf coast, but the storm does not appear to pose a threat to New Orleans, forecasters said. Category 3 Hurricane Katrina struck the city a year ago Tuesday and devastated it.

“It’s difficult to say where it will be, but in three days we’re projecting it anywhere from the eastern Gulf near the Florida panhandle to the western Bahamas,” said Cangialosi.

By Sunday night, Ernesto’s winds slowed to near 50 mph, down from 75 mph earlier in the day, according to the hurricane center.

Officials in the Florida Keys evacuated tourists as the storm steams toward southern Florida.

“It’s on a track toward the Florida peninsula early this week, and all of Florida is in the area that’s being threatened, from the Keys all the way up to the panhandle,” said Michael Brennan, a meteorologist at the center in Miami.

Ernesto was moving northwest at 7 mph on Sunday night. It passed near the tip of Haiti’s southwestern peninsula in the afternoon. Forecasters said as much as 20 inches of rain could fall in some mountain areas, raising fears of flash floods in the heavily deforested country.

Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti’s civil protection agency, said by telephone that one person on Vache Island off Haiti’s south coast died in the storm.

Haitian officials went on the radio to warn people living in flimsy shantytowns on the coast to seek shelter in schools and churches.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller put the country’s security forces on alert Saturday.

In Cuba, the government issued a hurricane warning for six eastern provinces.