Weakened Hurricane Paula plods toward Cuba

Small, weakening Hurricane Paula plodded toward western Cuba on Wednesday on a path toward the country's tobacco-growing region and eventually Havana.                                           

The US National Hurricane Centre said it was a minimal Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, with top winds of 85 miles per hour (140kph) that extended just 10 miles (20km) from the eye.                                           
 

Its increasingly ill-defined center was 40 miles (64km) west of Cuba's westernmost province, Pinar del Rio, where landfall was expected late on Wednesday or early Thursday as the storm crept north-northeast through the Yucatan Channel at 3 mph (6kph), the Miami-based center said in its latest advisory.                                           
 

Intermittently heavy rains and winds up to 37 mph (61kph) were reported along the coast and expected to filter inland. A storm surge up to 6 feet (1.8 metres) was forecast.                             
 

The hurricane centre said the storm could dump 3 to 6 inches (7.5 to 15cm) of rain, with up to 10 inches (25cm) possible in mountainous areas.                                           
 

Local officials said freshly planted fields of Pinar del Rio's prized tobacco, from which world-famous Cuban cigars are made, had been covered and leaves from the previous harvest safely stored.  
 

Officials were encouraging but not yet ordering residents of low-lying areas to move to higher ground in case of flooding.       
 

Earlier in the day, Paula, the 16th named storm of the busy 2010 Atlantic season and the ninth hurricane, grazed Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula but inflicted little damage to the tourist resorts on the country's Caribbean coast.                                           
 

The hurricane did not affect any of Mexico's main offshore oil-producing regions in the Gulf of Mexico and was not expected to move into the US oil and gas fields in the Gulf.                     
 

The Miami-based hurricane center said Paula was on a path to hit Havana by early on Friday and posted tropical storm warnings for the scenic but crumbling city where high winds and heavy rains routinely topple decaying buildings.                                           

Cuba suffers few deaths from hurricanes because evacuations are mandatory and efficiently executed.                                           
 

The Cuban weather service said it expected the storm to be just a tropical depression by the time it reached Havana and that it would bring much-needed rain to western Cuba.                
 

The island still has not recovered fully from three powerful hurricanes that struck in 2008, causing $10 billion in damage and dealing a serious blow to the country's fragile economy.           
 

Many people were moving refrigerators and other valuables out of harm's way because the memories of 2008 were fresh in their minds, said Jesus Bacallao, 69, a resident of the tobacco-growing town of San Juan y Martinez.                                           
 

"With these things, you never know," he said. "In the 2008 storms, several tobacco barns were knocked over and we still haven't forgotten the fear we felt."                                            
 

Cuban television said the local banana harvest had been speeded up and livestock moved to safe areas. Pinar del Rio is not a big sugar-producing region on the island.                         
 

Paula was not expected to inflict great damage. The hurricane center called it a "small hurricane" and predicted a rapid decline.   
 

The storm, which had 100-mph (160-kph) winds at its peak, was in warm waters normally hospitable for hurricanes, but wind shear was destroying its strength, forecasters said.                           
 

A tropical storm watch also was issued for part of the Florida Keys, 90 miles (145km) north of Cuba.                                           

Paula, which formed off the coast of Honduras on Monday, spared Central America's coffee-growing region, battered this year by heavy rains.