By Horace Helps
KINGSTON, Jamaica, July 15 (Reuters) - Jamaica evacuated its old pirate town, Port Royal, and other flood-prone coastal areas on Friday as Hurricane Emily drew closer, the second hurricane to threaten the Caribbean island in 10 days.

The government ordered thousands of people evacuated from homes to schools and churches as a safety precaution, many of them from Portmore, a city of 300,000 about 7 miles (11 km) west of Kingston, which routinely floods.

The small settlement of Port Royal, a bawdy hangout for the legendary buccaneers of the Spanish Main four centuries

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, July 13 (Reuters) - The fifth storm of the Atlantic hurricane season grew into a hurricane on Wednesday as it churned through the Windward Islands of the eastern Caribbean.

Emily's sustained winds hit 90 mph (144 kph) as it approached Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and threatened Venezuela and the Netherlands Antilles.

At 11 p.m. EDT on Wednesday (0300 GMT on Thursday), the center of Hurricane Emily was about 45 miles (72 km) east-southeast of Grenada and moving to the west at 18 mph (29 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

By Horace Helps

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Jamaicans rushed to supermarkets and schools closed as Hurricane Ivan swept toward the Caribbean island with 160-mph (258-kph) winds on Thursday after killing at least 20 people on the tiny spice island of Grenada.

Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson urged Jamaica's 2.7 million people to get ready as Ivan grew to a monster Category 5 storm, the most intense on the hurricane scale.

"All persons should prepare to relocate to shelters as soon as the Office of Disaster Preparedness instructs them

By Carol Bareuther

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Deadly Hurricane Lenny on Friday swept its powerful winds and torrential rains through the fragile Leeward Islands in the northeastern Caribbean.

The unusual west-to-east moving storm left a path of death and destruction in the region, churning up waves that smashed boats, washed away roads, scattered debris, tore at hotels and slid coastal homes into the water. Its winds weakened, while it dumped 10 to 15 inches of rain (25 cm to 38 cm), triggering flooding and mudslides in mountainous areas.