SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Hurricane Hugo aimed its 140-mph winds Sunday at Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands after pounding the Leeward Islands. At least six people were killed, 40 injured and 4,000 left homeless.
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands braced for what was expected to become one of the most destructive hurricanes to sweep the Caribbean in a decade. Winds up to 100 mph were pummeling the Virgin Islands before midnight, and Hugo's eye was expected to reach Puerto Rico by 2 a.m.
'Anywhere the eye hits can expect to experience fairly catastropic damage,' said Jack Beven, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla. 'It's the wind and the storm surge near the center that will do most of the damage.'
By midnight, the worst destruction was reported on Guadeloupe where five people were confirmed dead, but the full extent of damage on the resort islands in the eastern Caribbean archipelago was not immediately known because the huge storm severed communications with many of them.
A sixth storm-related death was reported in Puerto Rico, where a 51-year-old man was electrocuted when he was hit by a high-tension wire while trying to take down a television antenna in advance of the storm.
An amateur radio report relayed from Montserrat through the Virgin Islands said there was 'the possibility of two fatalities' on the island, which was left without utilities or an operational hospital. The deaths could not be immediately confirmed.
The National Hurricane Center described 250-mile-wide Hugo as an extremely dangerous hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph and gusts to 150 mph.
The Hurricane Center said that at 10:30 p.m. EDT Hugo was about 130 miles east-southeast of San Juan, at latitude 17.4 degrees north and longitude 64.5 degrees west. The storm was moving west-northwest at 9 mph, slowing from 10 mph less than two hours earlier.
Hurricane-force winds extended outward 85 miles north and 60 miles south of the center. Tropical storm winds extended up to 200 miles north and 150 miles south of the center.
'It is really wild,' said an amateur radio operator in St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, as 100 mph winds hit the island.
Tony Resto of Christiansted, St. Croix, said the high winds uprooted trees, tore off roofs and downed power lines. He told a local radio station, 'The situation is critical.'
A St. Thomas amateur radio operator said the high winds ripped roofs from homes and set boats adrift. The power company suspended service until the storm passed.
Puerto Rico's National Meteorological Service reported heavy rains and flooding Sunday in the U.S. Virgin Islands, foreshadowing Hugo's approach. St. Croix was expected to receive up to 10 inches of rain by Monday morning.
Forecasters said the storm's fury was not expected to diminish over the next day or two. Puerto Rican authorities tried to evacuate low-lying areas and feared the ferocious storm could leave a path of destruction up to 80 miles wide.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for Puerto Rico and in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. The government of the Dominican Republic issued a hurricane warning for parts of that island. A hurricane watch was in effect for the southeastern Bahamas, including the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Warnings were discontinued for St. Martin and surrounding islands, but residents were urged to remain indoors until the winds and seas subside.
Beven said Hugo was expected to move into the Atlantic Ocean off the Dominican Republic by Tuesday, move up to the center of the Bahamas by Wednesday and 'after that, it's anybody's guess.'
'We expect it to maintain about its current intensity. Hitting Puerto Rico might take a little out of it, but we expect the hurricane to regain its strength as it moves back out into the Atlantic,' he said. 'It is roughly about 1,000 miles from Miami. We cannot determine right now whether it will effect the continental United States.'
Hugo was classified as a Category 4 hurricane with 140-mph winds, capable of causing 'extreme' damage, and it bordered on becoming a Category 5 storm, capable of causing 'catastrophic damage.'
Meanwhile, a new tropical storm, Iris, was forming in the Atlantic 480 miles east of the Windward Islands, which felt some of Hugo's fury as it passed over the Leeward Islands to the north.
