Hurricane Omar Sweeps Over Virgin Islands, Out to Sea

By Alex Morales and Brian K. Sullivan

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Omar sped up on its path toward the open Atlantic Ocean and its winds slowed to 115 miles (185 kilometers) per hour after it swept over the Virgin Islands, where it prompted a curfew and closed an oil refinery.

Hurricane warnings and watches were discontinued for the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and islands including St. Eustatius, St. Barthelemy and Anguilla, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory just before 8 a.m. Miami time.

``We had a whole heap of wind and water,'' Maria Robles, the night attendant at the Divi Carina Bay Resort in St. Croix, said today in a telephone interview.

U.S. Virgin Islands Governor John deJongh Jr. closed schools, sent non-essential government workers home and ordered a curfew that began at 6 p.m. local time yesterday, according to a statement on his Web site. The Public Works Department was distributing sandbags on all of the territory's islands.

``We will vigorously enforce this curfew as it is necessary that we clear the streets and avoid persons becoming injured,'' Police Commissioner James McCall said in the statement.

Omar packed winds of 125 mph earlier today as it blew through the Virgin Islands.

Outside the King Christian Hotel at Christiansted, St. Croix, two boats sank and another was smashed against the concrete dock, a security officer who declined to be identified said in a telephone interview. At the Buccaneer Hotel, also on St. Croix, many trees lost branches or were uprooted, another security officer said by phone.

Eye of Omar

The eye of Omar was 160 miles north-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands and moving northeast at 29 mph, after speeding up from 20 mph an hour earlier, according to the latest advisory from the hurricane center in Miami. After clearing the Caribbean, the system is forecast to track northeast and into the central Atlantic Ocean.

The worst of the storm had passed the French islands of St. Barthelemy and St. Martin by 5 a.m. local time, Meteo-France, the government forecaster, said in a statement on its Web site. As much as 5 inches of rain fell on St. Martin, it said.

``The strong rains have ended, though showers may persist,'' the agency said. There will be ``rapid improvement of the wind and rain this morning.''

Evacuation Orders

Evacuation orders were issued yesterday for parts of Anguilla, while in the British Virgin Islands, ports and clinics were closed and ferry service suspended, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency said on its Web site.

Omar is a Category 3 storm, in the middle of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, defined as having sustained winds of 111 mph to 130 mph. Omar may bring as much as 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain to the northern Leeward Islands, possibly causing ``life-threatening'' flash floods and mudslides, the center said.

On Montserrat, authorities were monitoring the effect heavy rains might have on the island's Soufriere Hill volcano. They ordered an evacuation of parts of the island because of the risk of the volcano's dome collapsing and the threat posed by mudflows of volcanic ash and water, the country's Disaster Management Agency said.

``The entire population is asked to be vigilant in the light of proposed increased rainfall which could cause severe flooding,'' the agency said on the Montserrat Volcano Observatory Web site. ``Residents are being asked not to traverse watercourses during intense rainfall and farmers are asked to move animals from these channels before it starts raining.''

St. Croix in the Virgin Islands is the site of the Hovensa LLC oil refinery, the third-biggest in the Americas. Hovensa shut down processing equipment at the facility, Alex Moorhead, a spokesman for the plant, said yesterday by telephone.

The refinery handled 456,000 barrels a day in July, according to the latest U.S. Energy Department records. The U.S. mainland received 338,000 barrels a day of refined products from the plant. The refinery is owned by Hess Corp. of New York and Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net; Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net