Cuba readies for Tropical Storm Elsa

Cuba evacuated 180,000 people amid fears Sunday that Tropical Storm Elsa could cause heavy flooding after battering several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.

The Cuban government opened shelters and moved to protect sugarcane and cocoa crops ahead of the storm, which was offshore moving along Cuba’s southern coast late Sunday and expected to make landfall farther west by today afternoon. Most of those evacuated went to relatives’ homes, while some people sheltered at government facilities. Hundreds living in mountainous areas took refuge in natural caves prepared for emergencies.

The storm’s next target was Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties.

Elsa’s center was about 270 miles southeast of Havana and moving northwest at 15 mph. Its maximum sustained winds had strengthened a bit to about 65 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The center said the storm was expected to gradually weaken while passing over central Cuba today.

“After Elsa emerges over the Florida Straits and the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, some slight re-strengthening is possible,” it said.

Rain fell intermittently in Cuba’s eastern provinces throughout Sunday as the storm passed by to the south.

“So far it’s a soft, serene rain. There are no downpours. The streets are not overflowing,” Yolanda Tabío, a 73-year-old retiree living in Santiago, told The Associated Press. “I thought it could be worse.”

Rafael Carmenate, a volunteer for the local Red Cross who lives facing the beach in Santa Cruz del Sur, told the AP by telephone: “We have a little water — showers. The sea has not intruded. It’s cloudy and gusty.”

The storm killed one person on St. Lucia, according to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency. A 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman died Saturday in separate events in the Dominican Republic.