Hurricane Emily ratcheted up to a deadly Category 4 storm Friday, killing at least one person on the Caribbean island of Grenada when a landslide destroyed his house.
The Atlantic season's fifth storm generated sustained winds of 217 kilometres an hour, up from 145 km/h a day earlier.Emily flooded two hospitals and smashed windows across the island.
A Canadian in Grenada as part of a reconstruction effort for last year's Hurricane Ivan said she saw Emily's centre pass overhead.
"All of a sudden, everything got quiet and I thought the worst was over. Then a powerful wall of rain and wind struck us. It was screaming like a jet engine. I realized that we had been caught in the eye of the storm," Jennifer Deveney said.
Grenada was hit hard by hurricane Ivan last September, killing at least 39 people and destroying thousands of homes.
David Danylewich, executive director of Youth Challenge International, said the rebuilding group had hoped to build a hurricane shelter for one island community, but hadn't finished before Emily struck.
"Our volunteers and staff on the ground indicate Emily's impact is huge. People are homeless. Flooding is widespread and the islands have been very hard hit," Danylewich said.
The storm cut a wide swath through the Caribbean, dropping heavy rains on Trinidad to the south, Venezuela to the west and the Dominican Republic to the northwest.
Forecasters believe the slow-moving storm has picked up a little speed. It's now expected to hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula on Sunday instead of Monday. On the way it will lie just south of Jamaica by Friday night and head past the Cayman Islands on Saturday.
People were ordered off Grenada's streets late Wednesday and businesses closed and a tropical storm warning was in effect for the northern coast of Venezuela, including the capital, Caracas.
Oil tankers at Venezuela's oil refining port of Puerto la Cruz were temporarily forbidden to head to sea.
