Hurricane Felix has grown rapidly into a Category 5 storm and is working its way across the Caribbean Sea, possibly heading for Belize.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday night that Felix now has sustained winds of about 270 kilometres per hour. They describe the hurricane as "potentially catastrophic."
Here is some of the damage that can be expected from a :
- Storm surge generally almost six metres above normal;
- Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings;
- Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away; and
- Complete destruction of mobile homes
However, the center noted that hurricanes can fluxuate in intensity, and said Felix could ease to a still-dangerous Category 4 storm.
Felix is on track to pass just north of Honduras in Central America on Tuesday before veering up into the Yucatan peninsula shared by Belize and Mexico. The government of Honduras has issued a hurricane warning from Limon to the Honduras-Nicaragua border.
The storm became the second named Atlantic hurricane of 2007 on Saturday night. Felix had sustained maximum winds of 160 km/h early on Sunday.
By 8 p.m. ET, Felix was centered about 550 kilometres southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and was moving west-northwest at about 33 km/h, according to the center.
Hurricane winds extend out about 35 kilometres on each side of the eye, making it a smaller hurricane than last month's hurricane Dean, which hit the Yucatan as a Category 5 storm that radiated 95 km out from the eye.
Little damage earlier
Despite its growing strength, Felix left little damage beyond downed trees and some scattered power outages in Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire -- three islands near Venezuela.
In Bonaire, residents had buckled down and prepared for the worst. They hauled boats up the beach and installing shutters, though the damage turned out to be minimal.
The storm led to about a dozen houses being flooded in Curacao.
Aruba experienced little visible damage beyond a boat breaking loose from its moorings and damage caused to a house from a falling tree.
Grenada was blasted with wind and rain on Saturday as Felix -- then classified as a tropical storm, lashed the island, breaking boats loose from their moorings, and knocking down power lines and interrupting radio and television stations.
No injuries were reported, but roofs were ripped from at least two homes, a concert venue was destroyed and orchards were left in tatters.
"It was really very, very scary," Jeff Charles, 29, told AP. "The wind was blowing so hard we thought our roof might come off."
Charles said he and his family waited out the storm in their house in Calliste.
Meanwhile, on Mexico's Pacific coast, warnings about Tropical Storm Henrietta were removed as the system moved out to sea.
Six people were left dead as a result of Henrietta -- three due to a giant boulder coming loose and destroying a house, and three due to a landslide.
That storm is still expected to become a hurricane, but is predicted to follow a path that will keep it away from land until Thursday, when it could collide with a remote section of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.
With a report from CTV's John Vennavally-Rao and files from The Associated Press
