Ernesto Pounds Cuba On Its Path To Florida
Posted August 28, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Tropical Storm Ernesto pounded Cuba on Monday as it continued along its path to Florida.
There were no reports of deaths or significant damage when the storm moved ashore about 20 miles west of the U.S. naval air base at Guantanamo. The storm has weakened since it struck Haiti, where it killed one person over the weekend.
But Ernesto is expected to strengthen into a hurricane again as it approaches the Sunshine State, which is why Florida Gov. Jeb Bush declared an emergency there.
“We do expect it to reach the Gulf, maybe as a Category 1 hurricane, possibly a Category 2,” said John Cangialosi, a meteorologist with U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. “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.”
Forecasters issued a hurricane watch for the southern peninsula of Florida Monday, and tourists were advised to leave the Florida Keys.
Ernesto became the Atlantic season’s first hurricane Sunday with winds of about 75 mph (120 km/h) before weakening within 24 hours.
Its path to Florida prompted NASA officials to indefinitely delay the launch of space shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis was supposed to lift off Tuesday, but instead it’ll be rolled off the launch pad and taken indoors to protect it from Ernesto’s high winds.
“We didn’t see anything in the way of significant change toward the good,” said Leroy Cain, chairman of the mission management team.
NASA reserved the right to change the rollback plan Tuesday if the weather forecast improves, but even if the shuttle stays put it wouldn’t launch until this weekend at the earliest.
