ST. GEORGE ‘S, Grenada – Assistance has begun coming to Grenada with the arrival of a supply ship from Trinidad and Tobago, and some regional security forces following the passage of Hurricane Ivan which devastated the island on Tuesday. The situation in Grenada has become so urgent that even though St Vincent was also affected by the storm, Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said he prefers any regional and international assistance be rushed to Grenada at his own country’s expense. There is a concern about a break down in security after a spate of lootings in both St George’s and Grenville, but Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said the security forces have the situation under control. The Associated Press said some of the escaped convicts included politicians jailed for 20 years for killings in a 1983 left-wing palace coup that led the United States to invade Grenada. Mitchell confirmed that prison escapees included some of the 17 people jailed for life for killings during a 1983 Marxist coup, but he didn't know who they were or if they included former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. Some troops from the regional security system based in Barbados have arrived in the island, and police from at least Antigua and St Kitts have left their country for Grenada. American medical students fearful of marauders armed themselves with knives and sticks. Students there, mostly Americans, were arming themselves with knives, sticks and pepper spray against looters, said Sonya Lazarevic, 36, from New York City. "We don't feel safe," she said by telephone. "It looks like a landslide happened," said Nicole Organ, a 21-year-old veterinary student from Toronto at St. George's University, which overlooks the Grenadian capital. "There are all these colors coming down the mountainside — sheets of metal, pieces of shacks, roofs came off in layers." When Organ wandered downtown after the hurricane passed, she said she saw bands of men carrying machetes looting a hardware store. She said she saw a bank with glass facade intact on her way down that was smashed when she returned. While the storm passed, students hid under mattresses or in bathrooms. "The pipes were whistling, the doors were vibrating, gusts were coming underneath the window," Lazarevic said. "It was absolutely terrifying." The most powerful hurricane to hit the Caribbean in 10 years damaged 90 percent of the homes in the "spice isle" of Grenada and destroyed a 17th century stone prison that left criminals on the loose, officials said Wednesday. Most of the islands hotels are reported to be in ruin and its valued nutmeg fields have been wiped out – cutting the islands two main sources of foreign exchange. "We are terribly devastated ... It's beyond imagination," Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said from aboard a British Royal Navy vessel that rushed to the rescue. Mitchell, whose own home was flattened, said 90 percent of houses on the island were damaged and he feared the death toll would rise. He said much of the country's agriculture had been destroyed, including the key nutmeg crop. "If you see the country today, it would be a surprise to anyone that we did not have more deaths than it appears at the moment," Mitchell said. Within hours, Grenada's Police Commissioner Roy Bedeau raised the death toll to 12, in an interview with Voice of Barbados radio, but he provided no details. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said virtually every major building in St. George's has suffered structural damage. Grenada's once-quaint capital boasted English Georgian and French provincial buildings. The United Nations is sending a disaster team, Eckhard said in New York City. The Caribbean disaster response agency, based in Barbados, said its team arrived Wednesday afternoon along with U.S. aid and Pan American Health Organization officials. Many Grenadians abroad have spent two days wondering about family and friends without being able to contact home. Nationals have been posting urgent messages on internet talk sites, and scores of e-mails have come in to CARIBUPDATE.COM hoping to find some good news from home. “Has anybody information on the Springs and Woburn Area? My father Kenneth Moore and family live in Springs overlooking the pasture,” one such message read. Even in Grenada itself, relatives did not know the whereabouts and fate of other family members in other villages. Hurricane Ivan pummeled Grenada, Barbados, St Vincent and Tobago with its devastating winds and rains, causing at least 15 deaths, before setting a direct course for Jamaica, Cuba and the hurricane-weary southern United States. Ivan strengthened early Thursday to become a Category 5 on a scale of 5. It packed sustained winds of 160 mph with higher gusts as it passed north of the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. Before it slammed into Grenada on Tuesday, Ivan gave Barbados and St. Vincent a pummeling, damaging hundreds of homes and cutting utilities. Thousands of people remained without electricity and water on Wednesday. In Tobago, officials reported a 32-year-old pregnant woman died when a 40-foot palm tree fell into her home, pinning her to her bed. In Venezuela, a 32-year-old man died after battering waves engulfed a kiosk on the northern coast. A 75-year-old Canadian woman was found drowned in a canal swollen by flood waters in Barbados. Neighbors said the Toronto native, who had lived in Barbados for 30 years, braved the storm to search for her cat. Ivan is expected to reach Jamaica by Friday and Cuba by the weekend, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. It would follow close on the heels of Hurricane Charley, which killed 27 people in southwest Florida last month and caused an estimated $6.8 billion in insured damage. "After Jamaica, it's probably going to hit somewhere in the U.S., unfortunately," meteorologist Jennifer Pralgo said. "We're hoping it's not Florida again, but it's taking a fairly similar track to Charley at the moment." Another meteorologist at the Miami center, Hugh Cobb, added this grim warning: "Whoever gets this, it's going to be bad." Cobb said that if Ivan hit Jamaica, it could be more destructive than Hurricane Gilbert, which was only Category 3 when it devastated the island in 1988. Jamaica posted a hurricane watch Wednesday afternoon and ordered all schools closed and fishermen to pull their skiffs ashore and head for dry land. Haiti's southwest peninsula was on hurricane watch as well. Source: caribupdate.com