Web-posted September 12, 1996

By NIKO PRICE
Associated Press Writer

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) - Packing 140-mph winds, Hurricane Hortense took a swipe at the Turks and Caicos islands and barreled past the Bahamas Thursday on a track that could threaten the northeastern United States over the weekend.

In Puerto Rico, where at least 14 people died in the storm Tuesday, residents and work crews continued their arduous cleanup - from sorting through soiled clothing to clearing roads and bridges.

Their misery was compounded by widespread water and power outages - about 40 percent of the island's 3.6 million people still had no power Thursday - but federal help was on the way. More than 7,600 people were registered at 115 shelters Thursday.

A U.S. Air Force hurricane-hunter plane recorded sustained winds of about 140 mph, making Hortense a very dangerous Category 4 storm. A Category 5 storm is the most dangerous.

At 11 p.m. EDT, the center of Hortense was centered about 645 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. It was moving north at 15 mph, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 70 miles from its center.

Heavy surf from the storm could reach southeastern U.S. shores by Friday, and there was a slight chance the storm could threaten Long Island, N.Y., Rhode Island, or Cape Cod, Mass., on Sunday, forecasters said.

Meanwhile, another hurricane was menacing Mexico's Pacific coast. On the lower half of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, flights were canceled and ports closed to all vessels as Hurricane Fausto moved closer, with sustained winds of 115 mph, up from 90 mph on Wednesday.

Thursday afternoon, Fausto was located about 115 miles south-southwest of Cabo San Lucas, on the peninsula's southern tip. Its outer winds were already buffeting the peninsula. The hurricane was moving northward at 10 mph, possibly reaching the southern portion of the peninsula by Thursday night.

Hortense was expected to continue north and increase speed to 20 mph on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The hurricane pounded the Turks and Caicos islands with 90-mph winds but inflicted little serious damage, and no injuries were reported. In the Bahamas, residents stowed property and boarded up windows for the second time in two weeks - Hurricane Fran narrowly missed the islands last week - only to awaken Thursday to sunny skies.

``Everybody battened up and did hurricane preparations and no one was allowed to go to work yesterday, but nothing happened,'' said Marion Cartwright, a telephone operator on Great Inagua Island.

The death toll from Hortense reached 16 Thursday with the discovery of a man's body near the Rio Grande river in the northeastern Puerto Rican town of Loiza. Another body was recovered from a beach in Patillas in southeastern Puerto Rico late Wednesday.

The storm, which delivered as much as 20 inches of rain, also killed two in the Dominican Republic. Most of the victims drowned.

President Clinton declared four Puerto Rican towns disaster areas, making residents eligible for federal grants, low-interest loans and emergency housing. More towns could be added to the list as Federal Emergency Management Agency officials survey the island.

Damage estimates for Puerto Rico reached $155 million and were certain to rise, Gov. Pedro Rossello said. Agricultural losses alone reached $128 million, with coffee and banana plantations severely damaged.

Manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies were losing millions of dollars each day without power, said Hector Jimenez Juarbe of the Industrialists Association of Puerto Rico.

Most of San Juan, the capital, was in darkness Wednesday night. Food spoiled in refrigerators, and those lucky enough to have water often had a mud-colored liquid emerge from the tap. Residents endured long lines in up to 90-degree heat for such essentials as ice and drinking water.

A melee erupted Thursday among hundreds waiting in line for ice in the southern city of Ponce. Police quickly halted the fighting.

A swollen river rushed Thursday through the Eureka Shrimp Co. near Toa Baja town, just outside San Juan, washing away thousands of shrimp. Traffic backed up for miles down coastal Highway 165 as people abandoned their cars to net shrimp.

Health inspectors visited hundreds of grocery stores and warehouses to ensure that owners disposed of spoiled meats, milk and other foods. Officials also warned that standing water on the saturated island could produce disease-carrying mosquitoes.

Andres Berrios, 86, and his wife, Flavia, 80, waited two days on the second floor of their Toaville home just west of San Juan until 8-foot-high floodwaters receded Thursday. Caked in mud from his nose to his bare feet, Berrios watched as his son, Hector, hammered away at a concrete floor to let the remaining water out.

``We've lost absolutely everything, but what can one do?'' Berrios said.

Car salesmen along San Juan's Kennedy Avenue glumly made the rounds among hundreds of flood-damaged cars, for which they have no insurance.

In other storm developments:

- Puerto Rican public schools that weren't damaged or being used as shelters reopened Thursday.

- The 16th-century Spanish forts of San Cristobal and El Morro in Old San Juan, having withstood countless hurricanes, will reopen to the public Friday, the National Park Service announced.

- Mudslides blocked access to a peak in Puerto Rico's Caribbean National Forest that holds communications equipment for the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Navy and other entities.