Hurricane Paloma slows to a crawl over Cuba

Hurricane Paloma has now been downgraded to a Category One storm over Cuba. In anticipation of the severe weather front, more than a million Cubans were reported to have been evacuated from their homes into reinforced shelters.

Since hitting Cuba, Paloma has been weakened from a Category Four hurricane, but winds topping 170 kilometers an hour added to the damage wrought by hurricanes Ike and Gustav earlier this year. After Cuba, the storm is headed for the Bahamas.

At the height of its power yesterday Paloma battered the Cayman Islands, although residents of the largest of the group of islands, Grand Cayman were spared the worst. “We really got lucky on this one, unfortunately other people were not that lucky,” said one resident of the Cayman capital, George Town.

Around 90 percent of homes on the smaller Cayman Brac and Little Cayman were badly damaged, although no casualties have been reported.

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