PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten -- Hurricane Lenny lashed the eastern Caribbean with heavy rain for a second day Friday after killing at least nine people and causing millions in damage to islands just entering the high tourist season.
The storm ravaged homes and boats, stripped beaches of sand, flooded hotels and roads, downed utility lines and disrupted communications before drifting eastward into the Atlantic to die."Its destructiveness was immense and unforgiving," declared St. Lucia Prime Minister Kenny Anthony. At least 70 homes were destroyed on St. Lucia.
Lenny's winds had reached 150 mph before dwindling to 70 mph -- tropical storm strength -- as it rapidly disintegrated. At 7 p.m. EST Friday, its poorly defined center was about 20 miles northeast of Antigua. It was drifting eastward toward the open Atlantic.
Lenny touched most islands through the Greater and Lesser Antilles on its unusual west-to-east trek late in the Atlantic hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.
Though diminishing in power, Lenny could bring up to 15 more inches of rain on already saturated islands, forecasters warned.
Three people were killed in Dutch St. Maarten -- two struck by flying debris late Thursday and a motorist who died when the hillside road he was on collapsed.
Lenny's winds, rain, flooding and storm surges also were blamed for one death in Puerto Rico, two in Colombia and one in Martinique. One person was missing in Dominica.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it rescued a St. Martin man on Thursday who survived two days in a life raft buffeted by more than 100-mph winds and up to 30-foot seas. But the man's companion died, the Coast Guard said in San Juan.
The storm wasn't headed for the mainland United States but could bring heavy surf capable of eroding beaches in Florida, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.