EMILY shifted a bit to the south yesterday, but still threatened the island’s southern shores with searing winds and rain, forcing Jamaicans to again hunker down for a hurricane for the second time in a week.

Prime Minister P J Patterson, in a late night statement, said that based on the new information the scale of advanced evacuation had been reduced.

However, he said the National Emergency Operation Centre was still continuing with some evacuation as a precautionary measure in case there was a change in direction, strengthening of the hurricane or heavy rainfall last night.

At seven o’clock last night Emily was 281 miles (450 kilometres) south-east of Morant Point, Jamaica’s most easterly tip, travelling west-northwest at about 19 miles an hour (30 km/h), a little slower than overnight and earlier in the day. Its maximum sustained winds were 115 miles an hour (185 km/h).

“The eye of Emily is expected to pass south of Jamaica tomorrow (today),” the Met Office said.

With hurricane force winds extending up to 35 miles (55 km) from the storm’s centre and tropical storm force winds of up to 138 miles (220 km), Jamaica could take a lashing.

With the earth already saturated by heavy rains from Hurricane Dennis last Thursday, several areas could be affected by flooding.

Many businesses sent home staff early, causing mid-afternoon traffic snarls in Kingston and other towns and stores were crammed with shoppers stocking up on last-minute supplies.

But even as the authorities urged people in flood-prone areas in the island’s south and south central regions to head for shelter – saying that they were prepared to evacuate tens of thousands of people – it appeared up to early evening that preparations were not fully in place.

And in some cases, such as Port Royal, the small town on the end of a spit that almost encircles the Kingston harbour, residents were refusing to move.

In the afternoon two gleaming white buses from the government’s Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) were parked in the town waiting to transport people to the National Arena in Kingston.

They had no takers.

Across the road a knot of young people laughed and talked as the smell of chicken being jerked over a wooden fire wafted in the hazy afternoon atmosphere.

Jean Prawl, a 74-year-old resident, said she was going nowhere. Prawl was adamant Emily could do no damage to the town, once the haunt of the 17th century English sea brigand Sir Henry Morgan and known as the wickedest city in the world until most of it sunk into the sea by a earthquake and tsunami in 1692.

“It will be far from us,” she said, showing a decades-old map on which she plotted storm routes.

For officials and the bus drivers it was a sense of de ja vu. It happened last year during Hurricane Ivan.

Most residents of Port Royal refused to evacuate. The town was for days cut off from the city as the sea created huge dunes on the road and formed new beaches.

But in the town itself, little happened.

“I never expected them to come with us,” said one of the JUTC drivers, waiting out his mandatory two hours before leaving.

Last night, Dr Barbara Carby, the head of the government’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) was not surprised at Port Royal’s refusal to evacuate.

“But we have provided them an opportunity to leave if they want to,” she said. “We can’t force them.”

However, their intended destination, the National Arena, a major shelter in the capital, remained closed up to six o’clock.

Five persons lingered patiently outside the building. Sonia Grant, 50, who left her home on Tavern Avenue in Papine, was among them.

“I live near the Hope River and I know what can happen when we have heavy rainfall,” she said. She saw it last year.

While Grant was willing to accept life in the arena rather than brave the Hope River, some ‘Port Royalists’ said facing high winds and stormy seas were better than the shelter – the experience when Ivan came.

“Last year people left their homes and went to the shelter and it was the worst thing they could have done,” said Tracey Getton. “This time around, no one is prepared to leave their peaceful community to face any harm at the National Arena.”

However, at Portland Cottage, the Clarendon community that was badly flooded by Ivan’s rain, some residents left the community early.

“I am not taking any chances. I spent one month here after Ivan, so I know what it is to be flooded-out,” said Judith Henry, who had already moved with her children to the Portland Cottage Primary School. Nearly 20 children were there too.

Several mothers had gone home to cook for their children, but would return later in the evening, Henry said.

At press time, the ODPEM’s Carby could not say how many people were then in shelters, having not yet received a report from the parishes.

Earlier in the day, the police had suggested that the government declare a limited state of emergency to help ensure order in the event of a catastrophe by Emily.

“That would help us and offer a better mechanism for us to operate,” said Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police Linval Bailey.

Prime Minister Patterson had declared a state of emergency on the eve of Ivan’s passage last September. Up to press time last night he had not acceded to Bailey’s suggestion.

Bailey urged calm.

“We are asking members of the public to remain off the streets as much as possible,” he said.