Tropical Storm Hanna drenches southern BahamasStory Highlights
Hanna could take a turn up Florida's Atlantic coast later in week
Storm dumps rain on Turks and Caicos Islands, southern Bahamas
Caribbean countries begin cleanup after deadly Hurricane Gustav
Satellite imagery shows other potential storms forming in open Atlantic
HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- Tropical Storm Hanna soaked the Bahamas on Monday on a path that could take it up Florida's Atlantic coast.
Satellite imagery from early Monday shows Tropical Storm Hanna, right, in the southern Bahamas.
1 of 2 And while Caribbean countries began cleaning up from Hurricane Gustav's destructive and deadly march, satellite imagery shows several other potential storms forming in the open Atlantic.
Hanna was drifting westward with top winds of 50 mph (85 kph) along "hurricane alley," dumping rain on the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southern Bahamas.
Forecasters predicted a gradual turn up the Atlantic side of the Bahamas island chain early this week.
That turn would be welcome news for Cuba, where Gustav smashed tens of thousands of homes and toppled electricity poles.
The massive storm raking the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday made a direct hit on Cuba's Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Saturday with screaming 140 mph (220 kph) winds, then crossed western Cuba, where gusts of 212 mph (340 kph) marked a new wind speed record for a country often hit by major hurricanes.
Gustav earlier killed 94 people by triggering floods and landslides in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. The Cayman Islands and Cuba were hit hard but apparently escaped without any loss of life.
In western Cuba, the storm damaged or destroyed 86,000 homes and downed 80 electricity towers, said Col. Miguel Angel Puig. He said 19 people were injured, though none gravely, and most of the 250,000 evacuees were back home Sunday evening.
On Isla de la Juventud, surging waters tossed a transport ferry from its moorings into a neighborhood in the city of Nueva Gerona, and knocked down radio and television towers. The storm snapped fruit trees, flooded all major roads and demolished homes.
In Pinar del Rio, the western tobacco-producing region, highways were blocked by fallen trees and downed power lines, and Puig said authorities were working to relocate those left homeless.
The National Hurricane Center was monitoring four other weather systems moving westward from the African coast, including one in the mid-Atlantic that it said has a high probability of intensifying into a tropical storm.
