Updated on
Summary Hurricane Sandy rolled out of the Bahamas on Friday after causing 40 deaths across the Caribbean.
Hurricane Sandy rolled out of the Bahamas on Friday after causing 40 deaths across the Caribbean, churning toward the U.S. East Coast, where it threatens to join forces with winter weather fronts to create a devastating super storm.The Category 1 hurricane toppled light posts, flooded roads and tore off tree branches as it charged through Cat Island and Eleuthera in the scattered archipelago, with authorities reporting one man killed, the British CEO of an investment bank.The death toll was still rising in impoverished Haiti, reaching 26 on Friday as word of disasters reached officials and rain continued to fall.Joseph Edgard Celestin, a spokesman for Haitis civil protection office, said some people died trying to cross storm-swollen rivers. While the storms center missed the country as it passed on Wednesday, Haitis ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides make it especially vulnerable to flood damage.Officials at a morgue in the western town of Grand Goave said a mudslide crashed through a wooden home on Thursday, killing 40-year-old Jacqueline Tatille and her four children, ranging in ages from 5 to 17.If the rain continues, for sure well have more people die, said morgue deputy Joseph Franck Laporte. The earth cannot hold the rain.Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane when it wreaked havoc in Cuba on Thursday, killing 11 people in eastern Santiago and Guantanamo provinces as its howling winds and rain destroyed thousands of houses and ripped off roofs. Authorities said it was Cubas deadliest storm since July 2005, when category 5 Hurricane Dennis killed 16 people and caused $2.4 billion in damage.Cuban authorities said the islands 11 dead included a 4-month-old boy who was crushed when his home collapsed and an 84-year-old man in Santiago province. Near the city of Guantanamo, the Communist Party daily Granma reported, two men were killed by falling trees.Sandy also killed a man in Jamaica on Wednesday when a boulder crashed through his house, and police in the Bahamas said a 66-year-old man died after falling from his roof in upscale Lyford Cay late Thursday while trying to repair a window shutter. Officials at Deltec Bank & Trust identified him as Timothy Fraser-Smith, who became CEO in June 2000.One death was reported in Puerto Rico. Police said a man in his 50s was swept away Friday by a swollen river in the southern town of Juana Diaz, where rain from Sandys outer bands has been steadily falling.On Friday afternoon, the hurricanes center was about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north-northeast of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 430 miles (695 kilometers) south-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina. Sandy was moving north at 7 mph (11 kph) with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 kph).
