By Ruth Morris
Havana Bureau

RECOMPENSA, Cuba -- Powerful gusts peeled the roofs off rustic homes, whipped through sugar cane fields and screamed through city streets in western Cuba on Sunday as Hurricane Wilma crept toward South Florida.

Cuba found itself pinched between two raging weather systems over the weekend, with Wilma barreling along the northwest coast and Tropical Depression Alpha skidding past already drenched provinces to the east.

The island recorded its wettest October in 41 years, state-run newscasts reported, as Wilma's outer bands continued to dump torrents of rain and push waves over retaining walls along the southern coast.

Authorities reported winds of 55 mph in the western tobacco region of Pinar del Rio, where several small tornados spun through the area during the weekend, carrying away shingles and fiberglass roofing. Six people were reported to have minor injuries from the twisters. Three consecutive days of sporadic downpours swamped fishing villages along Cuba's southern coast and filled reservoirs to the spilling point.

"We have no electricity. There is no news here," said Amelia Cabezas, a housewife, on a coastal road near Recompensa, in northern Pinar del Rio province. "It's an old house," she said of her rough-plank home. "I don't know what will happen to my roof. ... My nerves are bad."

Speaking from behind a crooked iron gate, a pile of plantains on a well-worn wooden chair beside her, Cabezas was one of a few stragglers who waited until the last minute to move to sturdier structures. Civil Defense troops have evacuated 637,000 residents ahead of the storm, mostly to neighbors' homes.

Elsewhere, houses stood empty and shuttered. Horse buggies were tipped upward and stacked under awnings.

"We're watching weather forecasts all the time," said Felix Vea, an agricultural technician, walking his bicycle nearby. Tired of waiting for Wilma to pass, he said he had stocked up on rice, meat and coal long ago.

"But for now we don't think we have a problem," he said. "Now it's going to Florida."

In Havana, traffic lights were out along the historic Malecon, the seawall. Winds howled through the historic district's narrow streets, and laundry lines flapped madly.

Wilma's violent winds and downpours were expected to continue through the night, but even as the storm passed authorities ordered new evacuations in anticipation of Alpha's passage to the east.

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