Hurricane Dean spares Caymans, on collision course with Mexico's Yucatan

Residents of the coastal Bullbay neighborhood on Monday survey the damage to their property from a surge during the pass of Hurricane Dean near Jamaica. Jamaica avoided a direct hit when the storm passed to the south Sunday night.

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands - Hurricane Dean spared the Cayman Islands the worst of its fury on Monday as it headed for a collision course with Mexico's resort-dotted Caribbean coast, sending tourists fleeing for the airports and locals searching for higher ground.

Dean was already a powerful Category 4 storm as it raked the Cayman Islands. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said it could grow into a monstrous Category 5 hurricane before slashing across the Yucatan Peninsula and emerging in the oil-rich Gulf of Campeche.

Hurricane Dean storm track

See Hurricane Dean's progress into the Gulf with ArkansasOnline weather

While the storm's center was expected to strike central Mexico, the outer bands of the storm were likely to deliver rain and gusty winds to south Texas - already saturated from an unusually rainy summer. Texas officials were taking no changes - emergency operations centers opened, prison inmates were moved inland, and sandbags distributed.

Stay with ArkansasOnline for the developing story and read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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Hurricane Dean spares Caymans, on collision course with Mexico's Yucatan

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