southwest of Kingston at 7 p.m. (midnight GMT) and was moving west-northwest at 18 kilometers per hour, the National Hurricane Center in the United States said. On that course, Ivan was due to cross Jamaica and head toward the Cayman Islands by late Saturday and on to Cuba. Electricity was off across Jamaica as the electrical grid was shut down. Its airports were also closed, and its store shelves were cleaned out after residents had stocked up on food and other emergency supplies. Barbara Carby, the director of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, said international donor agencies had already been contacted in case Jamaica needs relief supplies after hurricane. Hurricane warnings were in effect in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, and hurricane watches were in effect in Haiti and Cuba. In Cuba, where five people died last month in Hurricane Charley, residents were nervously readying for the new storm, which they had already dubbed "Ivan the Terrible" in reference to the notorious 16th-century Russian tsar. Cuban leader Fidel Castro asked Cubans to "show more discipline than ever to preserve the lives and health of our people". He asked citizens to pay strict attention to emergency measures. "The only thing that cannot be recovered is human life," he said, adding that with "our energy, we will face and resolve adversities". Florida was also in the path of Ivan, which would be its third hurricane in a month after Charley on August 13 and Frances last week, which together killed 43 people there. The 80,000 residents of the Florida Keys were ordered to leave the 200-kilometre-long island chain that extends from the southwestern tip of the state. Forecasters said Ivan was on a course that could see it land in southern Florida on Sunday.
