Satellite image showing Dennis approaching Jamaica.

JAMAICA braced for a lashing from Hurricane Dennis today, the season's fourth tropical storm that was last night bearing down on the island's eastern parishes.

At eight o'clock last night, the storm was 244 miles east-southeast of Jamaica, moving west-northwest at approximately 13 miles an hour - a track that, unless it shifts, would take the hurricane across the island's north-eastern shore sometime today.

Weather officials expect the island to begin feeling the full effects of the hurricane by eight o'clock this morning.
With the devastation caused by Hurricane Ivan last year still fresh in their minds, Jamaicans yesterday frantically prepared for the latest storm, stocking up on groceries and battening down homes and businesses.

The KIA Motors lot on Half-Way-Tree Road in Kingston, which is normally packed with motor vehicles for sale, was empty yesterday afternoon. "We moved them to prevent water and wind damage," an official at the company told the Observer.

"Hurricane force winds now extend outward approximately 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the centre, while tropical storm force winds extend outward a further 130 kilometres (81 miles)," the National Meteorological Service in Kingston said last night.

Dennis, the Meteorological Service said, was expected to move close to the coastlines of Portland, St Mary and St Ann this morning, but other parishes would also feel the effects of the system as it moves into the northwestern Caribbean today.

Jamaicans stock up on groceries at a SuperPlus supermarket.

Yesterday, the Government ordered the closure of all schools, while most businesses, including banks, closed early in preparation for the hurricane. Small craft operators, including fishermen on the cays and banks off the island's south coast were advised to return to port and complete necessary safety precautions without delay.

The Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, as well as the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, St James closed at midnight.

Yesterday evening, acting prime minister Portia Simpson Miller said the security forces were prepared to combat any attempts at looting, as happened during the passage of Hurricane Ivan last September.

"Based on the Ivan experience, the security forces were on full alert to ensure that the levels of criminality which happened during Ivan will not happen again," she told journalists at a news conference at Jamaica House.

Simpson Miller was conducting the news conference because Prime Minister P J Patterson was en route to Jamaica, having left the 26th Caricom heads of government conference in St Lucia early because of the approaching hurricane.

Heavy rains and thunderstorms associated with Dennis started affecting the island from early yesterday morning, causing flooding in some eastern communities.

The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) said the Yallahs Ford in St Thomas was impassable, while Penline Castle, Epping farm, Minto, Hagley Gap, Terrick Hill and Grass Piece in Cedar Valley, St Thomas were inaccessible due to flooding. The White River Ford was also in spate and the ODPEM warned motorists and pedestrians to avoid flooded roads.

Last night, the ODPEM advised persons living close to the sea in Port Henderson and Edgewater, just outside Kingston on the south coast, to evacuate to shelters within Portmore, St Catherine.

As the rains abated close to midday, hundreds of persons flooded supermarkets and grocery shops throughout the day into last night stocking up on bread, biscuits, bottled water, tinned foods, candles, flashlights, lanterns and batteries.

Gas stations and hardware stores also did good business as hundreds of people bought ply board, nails and tarpaulins to secure their homes, while motorists filled up their tanks.
One shopper in Spanish Town, St Catherine told the Observer that she was stocking up as it was better to be prepared than to be sorry.

"I prefer to have too much stock in my house and don't use it than not to have any and starve..." the woman, who opted not to be named, said. "What if the hurricane really hit us and we can't come out of the house for days?" she asked. "You know, to be prepared is the best way to prevent having to regret that you never took precaution to experience the worst of times."

A supervisor at the SuperPlus supermarket in Spanish Town said shoppers were picking up every item on the shelf, especially bottled water, canned meat and juices. "I have never seen it quite like this," she told the Observer.

From early morning, a long line of traffic choked Courtney Walsh Drive in Kingston as persons rushed to get supplies of bottled water from the Catherine's Peak outlet.

- Observer reporters Erica Virtue and T K Whyte contributed to this story

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