Web-posted September 12, 1996

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By MICHELLE FAUL
Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Hurricane Hortense smashed the island of Grand Turk with torrents of rain and 90-mph winds Wednesday as it picked up speed and headed toward the United States, leaving 14 dead in its wake.

It was the third direct strike in two days for Hortense, which pounded Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic on Tuesday.

President Clinton declared Puerto Rico a disaster area Wednesday, making federal aid available to those affected by the Hurricane.

Hortense had sustained winds of 110 mph Wednesday night - with gusts to 120 mph - but was expected to lose strength overnight as it passed through the Caicos and southeastern Bahamas, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

At 11 p.m. EDT, the center of the storm was churning northwest at 9 mph through the Atlantic toward the Bahamas, passing 50 miles northeast of the Turks and Caicos Islands. Hurricane force winds extended outward for 60 miles.

The hurricane hit Grand Turk at 2 p.m., lashing the capital of the British island chain with gusts up to 90 mph while churning up the Atlantic Ocean with 105-mph winds. Because telephone lines were down on the island, it was impossible to determine whether there were any deaths or injuries.

Rains and winds preceding the hurricane knocked out power and telephone service to the island of 3,200, leaving residents without state television or radio.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said there was a slight chance the hurricane would cross the Bahamas and come within 65 miles of West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce on Florida's east coast Friday.

But forecasters think it's more likely a weather trough in the mid-Atlantic states will keep the hurricane offshore, pushing the storm north and possibly targeting the Northeast and New England by Sunday.

Residents of the southern Bahamian island of San Salvador waited restlessly Wednesday evening, as calm seas defied predictions that the hurricane would hit before morning.

``Everyone's sitting around the bar, sipping cocktails,'' said Kevin Williams, manager of the Riding Rock Inn in San Salvador. ``We're still planning to go night diving, and anyway, it doesn't look as if this one's going to hit.''

He added, ``We're not really worried, but that's probably because we've never seen a real hurricane.''

Schools and most businesses were closed on the island Wednesday.

Search helicopters found four more bodies Wednesday in Puerto Rico, where afternoon thunderstorms threatened more of the flash floods and mudslides responsible for most of the 12 deaths in this U.S. commonwealth.

Authorities in the Dominican Republic found two bodies Wednesday, bringing the death toll for the two islands to 14, half of them children. Many others were missing and presumed drowned.

Also Wednesday, a hurricane warning was posted in the Pacific Ocean for Mexico's Baja Peninsula south of La Paz, where Hurricane Fausto was 230 miles off to the southeast. Fausto's winds strengthened significantly late Wednesday, rising to sustained winds of 110 mph.

Hortense's sheets of blinding rain did the most damage in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, when highways that had been transformed into rivers swept away cars and rivers burst their banks, carrying away people and destroying more than 650 homes.

Power and water supplies were cut across most of this island of 3.6 million people. A third of the affected residents had their power back by Wednesday morning.

Overnight Tuesday, about 1,000 people were stranded on rooftops along a 15-mile stretch of beachfront highway running west from the capital of San Juan, the U.S. Coast Guard reported.

The rooftop refugees were spotted by helicopter pilots, but they could not help for fear of getting tangled in power lines, Petty Officer Tim Lavier said. The people were in no danger and came down when flood waters receded, he said.

Many San Juan houses still were knee-deep in water Wednesday. Highways were strewn with abandoned cars, while water and downed trees made many roads impassable.

Several people took to flooded streets in kayaks and canoes in San Juan's Ocean Park neighborhood.

Among the bodies recovered Wednesday was that of Luz M. Cruz Rodriguez, a 25-year-old mother of four swept away by a raging torrent of water that swamped her home near Guayama, 30 miles south of San Juan.

Rodriguez's children and husband survived after taking refuge atop a bedroom closet.

Half the dead in Puerto Rico were children, including two boys ages 2 and 3 who were killed in mudslides Tuesday, an 8-year-old girl swept from her father's arms, and her 13-year-old sister, who also drowned.

The sisters' bodies were found under a bridge. Four other family members were missing, as were two fishermen who disappeared off the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic.

Also in Puerto Rico, three adults drowned and a woman was found dead in her car, presumably of a heart attack. Puerto Rican authorities also recovered the body of a farmer swept away when he tried to cross a river in south coast Guayanilla and another man who drowned in flood waters in Toa Baja on the north coast.

In the Dominican Republic, a woman was electrocuted Tuesday when she touched a fallen electrical wire and a 61-year-old man died after falling from a tree while cutting felled branches just south of Santo Domingo.