Hurricane Dean pounds Jamaica as it passes south of island

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (CNN) -- Hurricane Dean battered the southern coast of Jamaica with heavy rains and surf as its eye passed offshore late Sunday, apparently sparing the Caribbean island the worst of its 145 mph winds.

David Shields, the deputy director of the island's tourism board, described conditions in the capital, Kingston, as "absolutely scary."

Ronald Jackson, Jamaica's disaster preparedness director, said at least one house had collapsed, but there were no known serious injuries.

"We'll be sending assessment teams out as soon as we can," Jackson said. See Dean's projected path »

At 11 p.m. ET, Dean's eye was located 135 miles (215 km) west-southwest of Kingston, the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, reported. Its top winds of 145 mph (232 km/h) made it a strong Category 4 storm, with hurricane-force winds extending 60 miles from its center.

Sustained winds of 80 mph buffeted Kingston, and amateur radio operators reported streets were flooding, the hurricane center said.

An unofficial observation from Lionel Town, about 30 miles east of the capital, put top winds at 100 mph. And an aviation weather station at Kingston International Airport clocked winds even higher, at 114 mph.

Tropical storm-force winds could be felt as far out as 205 miles from the storm, forecasters reported.

Dean was moving westward at nearly 20 mph as it skirted the island, forecasters said. As it moves into the western Caribbean Sea, the storm retains the potential to become a Category 5 hurricane -- the top of the scale, with winds in excess of 155 mph.

Jamaica Public Service Company -- the sole distributor of electricity in Jamaica -- announced it was turning off the island's electricity to preserve the integrity of the system. In addition, the National Water Commission said it had turned off some pumps, especially in places prone to flooding.

Forecasters predicted Dean would dump anywhere from 5 to 20 inches of rain on the island, with a storm surge of 7 to 9 feet (2 to 3 meters) expected to batter coastal areas.

The storm already has been blamed for at least seven deaths across the Caribbean islands, including two killed as the storm skirted Haiti.

Jackson said about 2,800 people had checked into 80 storm shelters across Jamaica. But he said he thinks the island's 2.8 million residents -- who were warned in recent days to "remain focused and prepared" -- had loaded up on supplies and were as ready as they could be.

In Montego Bay, on the north side of the island, Elise Orr said she felt safer in her apartment building than she would have in a shelter.

"The building is well-built, and it has a good reputation for being safe," she said.

Jamaica was battered by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. The last hurricane to hit the island was Ivan, in 2004. Businesses across the island were closed Sunday and a curfew, imposed Saturday evening, remained in effect.

The last airline flights left Jamaica Saturday night, with about 14,000 tourists estimated to have stayed behind -- either because they were unable to get a flight or opted to ride it out in Montego Bay hotels.

"Where we have everyone at the moment is very safe, very battened up, and everyone is just relaxing," Nicola Madden-Greig, spokeswoman for the Jamaica Hotel Association, told CNN. "We continue to monitor the wind intensity."

A hurricane warning remained in effect for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands could receive 4 to 8 inches of rain, with a maximum of 12 inches possible, and forecasters warned that the rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.

Meanwhile, authorities in Mexico and Belize issued hurricane warnings as the storm's projected track shifted southward, taking aim at the Yucatan Peninsula.

Warnings extended from the Mexican city of Chetumal north to the Yucatan resort of Cancun, and a hurricane watch was extended along the northern and western shores of the peninsula from Cancun to Ciudad del Carmen.

Belize issued a hurricane warning from Belize City northward to the Mexican border.

With Dean predicted to hit the Yucatan coast sometime Tuesday, airlines dispatched a dozen additional flights to retrieve tourists who want to leave Cancun ahead of the storm, airport spokesman Eduardo Rivadeneira said.

"Everything's leaving full," he said.

This weekend is one of the busiest of the year for Cancun, since it is the last one before schools reopen in Mexico. Cancun's airport, which normally handles 297 flights a day, will remain open "as long as possible" to handle departures, Rivadeneira said.

Like Jamaica, Haiti was spared a direct hit. But at least two people were killed and 10 were injured, according to Haiti's civil protection bureau. Six homes were destroyed and 200 homes damaged, but Dean stayed far enough south to spare Haiti from major mudslides or floods, officials said. See I-Report images of Dean's effects on the Caribbean »

On St. Lucia, police told CNN a man drowned in a river while trying to retrieve a cow. News media on Dominica reported a woman and her son died in a landslide, and two more people died on Martinique, The Associated Press reported, citing local authorities.

Tropical storm warnings remained posted for much of eastern Cuba and the southwestern peninsula of Haiti, from Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic border, as the storm chugged westward.

Sunday night's projections showed little chance that Dean would hit the United States. But federal officials and their state counterparts in Texas were preparing for any unexpected turn northward, and oil workers off the Texas coast were heading for shore. Watch Texas keeping a close eye on the big storm »

Texas Gov. Rick Perry activated a plan to evacuate the elderly and other special-needs residents from the Rio Grande Valley in the event the storm veers northward, and the state marshaled 1,300 school and commercial buses in San Antonio, Texas, for a possible evacuation.

David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he had activated his agency's hurricane-response plan, with disaster teams on the ground in San Antonio and more standing by.

FEMA was widely criticized for its response to Hurricane Katrina, which hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. Paulison said that storm was a "wake-up call" for the agency, adding that FEMA's efforts were "going very well" Sunday. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Susan Candiotti in Montego Bay, Harris Whitbeck in Cancun and Karl Penhaul in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

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