WEATHER Hurricane Ivan heads for Cuba as Category 5

The storm lashed the Cayman Islands on Sunday.
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (AP) -- Hurricane Ivan pummeled the Cayman Islands with fierce winds that ripped off roofs and floodwaters that swamped homes, then strengthened to an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm as it headed for western Cuba today.
The hurricane, one of the strongest on record to hit the region, has killed at least 65 people across the Caribbean and threatens millions more people in its projected path. About 1.3 million Cubans were evacuated from their homes, most taking refuge in the sturdier homes of relatives, co-workers or neighbors.
"It's as bad as it can possibly get," Justin Uzzell, 35, said Sunday by telephone from his fifth-floor refuge in an office building on Grand Cayman island. "It's a horizontal blizzard," he said. "The air is just foam."
Ivan's sustained winds weakened to 150 mph as they neared the wealthy British territory, then intensified late Sunday as the hurricane headed for western Cuba with winds nearing 160 mph. Storms over 155 miles are Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, the highest level and capable of catastrophic damage.
Officials had yet to assess damage, but Donnie Ebanks, deputy chairman of the Cayman Islands' National Hurricane Committee, estimated between one-fourth and half of the 15,000 homes in Grand Cayman suffered some damage.
Storm's path
Ivan was projected to pass near or over Cuba's western end by Monday afternoon or evening. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm surge could reach 25 feet with dangerous, battering waves.
The Hurricane Center said ham radio operators on Grand Cayman reported people standing on roofs because the sea in the low-lying island had surged up to 8 feet above normal tide levels.
The eye of the storm did not make a direct hit, passing just south of the island, said Rafael Mojica, a Hurricane Center meteorologist.
Still, emergency officials said residents from all parts of the island reported blown-off roofs and flooded homes as Ivan's shrieking winds and driving rain lashed Grand Cayman, the largest of three islands in the British territory of 45,000 people, a popular scuba diving destination and banking center.
"We know there is damage and it is severe," said Wes Emanuel of the Cayman Islands' Government Information Service.
The airport runway was flooded and windows shattered in the control tower, Ebanks said. The winds tore off leaves and uprooted trees as high as three stories.
Deaths
There were no immediate reports of injuries in the Cayman Islands, but at least 15 were killed in Jamaica, and 39 in Grenada. Ivan also killed five people in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, and four children in the Dominican Republic.
After Cuba, Ivan was projected to move into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, nearing parts of Florida's west coast still recovering from Hurricane Charley, on a path toward northwestern Florida. It could also make landfall at Mississippi or Louisiana, said another meteorologist at the Hurricane Center, Jennifer Pralgo.
"Right now, we're looking anywhere from the Florida panhandle to Louisiana," Pralgo said. "We do feel that the southern portion of Florida will be in the clear on this."
Mexico issued a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning for the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula, and hundreds abandoned fishing settlements on the nearby island of Holbox. The resort city of Cancun opened shelters and closed beaches.
While projections had the storm bypassing the Florida Keys, officials kept an evacuation order in place for the island chain's 79,000 residents.
The storm could dump up to one foot of rain that could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, the Hurricane Center said.
Officials told more than 100 evacuees in Houston, Texas, that two British navy ships were following Ivan and would bring aid to the Cayman Islands soon.