HAVANA -- Tropical Storm Elsa swept over western Cuba near Havana with strong rain and winds Monday night, and forecasters said it would move on to the Florida Keys today and Florida's central Gulf coast by Wednesday.
The storm was passing over mainly rural areas to the east of Havana after making landfall near Cienega de Zapata, a natural park with few inhabitants.
By evening, Elsa had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. Its core was about 30 miles east of Havana and moving northwest at 13 mph.
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"The wind is blowing hard and there is a lot of rain. Some water is getting under the door of my house. In the yard the level is high, but it did not get into the house," Lazaro Ramon Sosa, who lives in the Zapata Swamp, said by telephone. He said he saw some avocado trees fall nearby.
Though Havana was expected to miss the brunt of the storm, many people in the capital were staying in place.
"For now, I (am) staying at home. We have to wait for the night and see exactly what happens," said Aida Herrera, who lives next to the Malecon boulevard facing the sea.
Elsa spent Sunday and much of Monday sweeping parallel to Cuba's southern coast before heading on to land, sparing most of the island from significant effects.
Cuban officials had evacuated 180,000 people against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm was expected to move back over the sea before midnight Monday and then head for Florida. Tropical storm warnings were posted for the Florida Keys from Craig Key westward to the Dry Tortugas and for the west coast of Florida from Flamingo northward to the Ochlockonee River.
Forecasters said they'll have a better idea of exactly how Elsa will affect Florida after it finishes crossing Cuba. The latest prediction calls for Elsa's maximum sustained winds to climb back to 65 mph before it makes landfall.
"Some restrengthening of the cyclone is likely after it moves into the Gulf of Mexico, but vertical shear associated with a broad upper-level trough over the Gulf is likely to limit intensification," forecasters wrote.
Forecasters said gusty winds and heavy rain were possible through Wednesday as the storm grinds up the west coast of Florida. The northernmost fringe bands swept across Southeast Florida on Monday afternoon -- nothing major, but Florida Power & Light was already reporting about 150 power outages Monday evening in Broward County. Miami will experience its gustiest winds (around 25 mph) midmorning today, according to the National Weather Service.
The Lower Keys were likely to feel Elsa's winds this morning. The weather service showed Key West could see maximum sustained winds in the low 40s with gusts as high as 55 mph about 4 a.m. today.
Elsa was a Category 1 hurricane until Saturday morning, causing widespread damage on several eastern Caribbean islands Friday as the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. The storm caused the deaths of one person on St. Lucia and of a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman in the Dominican Republic. It also crushed crops in Haiti.
Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm and broke the record as the tropic's fastest-moving hurricane, clocking in at 31 mph Saturday morning, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
Information for this article was contributed by Andrea Rodriguez of The Associated Press; and by Alex Harris, Gwen Filosa and Adriana Brasileiro of The Miami Herald (TNS).
