Hurricane Ivan took aim Thursday at Jamaica and possibly Florida after killing 23 people in five countries and devastating Grenada, where police fired tear gas to stop a looting frenzy and frightened students armed themselves with knives and sticks.

Ivan, the deadliest hurricane to hit the Caribbean in a decade, pummeled Grenada, Barbados and other southern islands on Tuesday.

It weakened slightly and was downgraded Thursday from a Category 5 hurricane – the most powerful – to a Category 4 storm packing 150 mph winds but was still expected to pound Jamaica, where officials urged a half million people to evacuate coastal and flood-prone areas today.

In the Florida Keys, visitors spearheaded a total evacuation of the islands, emergency managers sounded the alarm and residents again gazed nervously at the horizon. “Lives are at stake,” Billy Wagner Sr., senior director of emergency management for Monroe County, Fla., said as thousands of people streamed off the Keys.

According to long-range forecasts that could change drastically, Ivan seemed to set its sights on Florida.

Where? Forecasters could not say, though late Thursday, the state’s upper Gulf Coast seemed most likely. But the storm was supposed to slow down, the steering currents were supposed to weaken. Southern Florida remained in peril, the entire state remained on edge.

Here we go again.

Two hurricanes, Charley and Frances, ravaged Florida in the last month, together blamed for 35 deaths in the state. Millions of people were still trying to rebuild their lives, about 1 million customers still without power.

Florida is apparently on Ivan’s itinerary. It seemed surreal, fictional, cinematic, but it was happening.

“This would be maybe a movie,” said Gov. Jeb Bush, who appeared visibly worried. “Maybe someone creative in Hollywood could come up with something like this, but this is past my imagination to imagine having the possibility of a third storm of this magnitude hit our state.”

Ivan’s path might be in doubt, but its destructive power was not.

Its top winds diminished slightly late in the day, but it remained a storm for the record books. If it had struck at its peak intensity Thursday, it would have ranked as the third-strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the U.S., slightly more powerful than Andrew in 1992.

The storm left its worst damage in Grenada, where from the air it appeared that nearly every house had been ripped up. Hunks of twisted metal and splintered wood torn from homes were strewn across the hillsides and roads of this country of 100,000 people. Many trees were snapped off, and those left standing were stripped of their leaves. The stone walls of the capital’s cathedral withstood the storm, but the entire roof had caved in.

In St. George’s, Grenada’s capital, police fired tear gas to try to stop a looting frenzy. Hundreds of people, including entire families with children, smashed hurricane shutters and shop windows to take televisions and shopping carts of food. An Associated Press reporter watched people walk away with bed frames and mattresses on their heads.

Troops from other Caribbean nations arrived to help restore order.

Thursday afternoon, police set up barricades on roads leading into the capital and ordered all but emergency personnel off the streets. Hundreds of screaming and shoving people said they had to get to town to buy water and food. Police fired more tear gas.

Officials in Miami-Dade and Broward went into monitoring mode, saying they could wait until Friday or Saturday to take action, if necessary.

But in the Keys, closer to this storm and more vulnerable, with only one road leading away from the storm, officials employed dramatic terms as they urged people to obey evacuation orders.

“Anyone who thinks this is going to be a picnic or something to tell their grandchildren about, they may not be around to tell their grandchildren about it,” said Irene Toner, Monroe County’s director of emergency management.

Tourists were told to leave Thursday. A phased evacuation of all Keys residents will begin Friday: Key West and the Lower Keys at 7 a.m, the Middle Keys at noon, the Upper Keys at 4 p.m.

At least 83,000 residents and tourists are in the Keys this week, officials said. Traffic flowed smoothly Thursday. Officials hoped for the same Friday.

The evacuation was conducted to the soundtrack of hammering and power-sawing as, once again, the shutters went up.

One of the main threats was storm surge, the wall of water that accompanies the eye when it makes landfall. That danger served as a prime motivation for the evacuation of the Keys and any other evacuations that might be ordered along the Gulf or East coasts.

“We aren’t talking minor flooding,” Toner said. “We are talking your home under the water” if the storm doesn’t weaken substantially or veer away.

County and state parks in the Keys closed Thursday; schools will be closed Friday. Depending on the course of the storm, deputies may be posted Friday on U.S. 1 in Florida City to prevent motorists from entering the Keys unless they have a legitimate reason.

Except for the Keys, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County, Fla., urged evacuees to travel to the closest safe destination – moving inland within their own counties, if possible, rather than select distant locations that require long trips along crowded roads and a lot of gasoline.

“I’ve always said, “Make friends in high places,’ ” he said.

Key West

At Key West’s tiny airport, seats dwindled as evacuees rushed into the place, only to find long lines.

“We’re a little bummed, but better safe than sorry,” Sherri Burrell of Rome, Ga., said as she and a few other tourists stepped out of a taxi and headed to the American Airlines counter.

To the north, hotels in Broward and Miami-Dade reported a spike in occupancy as people leaving the Keys – and jittery local residents eyeing another possible evacuation – sought refuge.

“They are going fast,” Nicki Grossman, president Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, said of Broward’s hotel rooms.

Officials in Miami-Dade, Broward and elsewhere in Florida expressed concern over Ivan, but said they had a little more time to assess the situation.

Local forecasters said residents of Miami-Dade and Broward could experience gusty winds and rain bands as early as Sunday. The extremely dangerous core of this storm could be in the area by midday Monday – or not.

Calling these “very trying times,” Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas said residents of his county should elevate their vigilance but take no other action at this time.

“I know the evacuation order issued in Monroe is a little troubling, but my advice is not to be alarmed,” he said. “There are three days until impact.”

The uncertainty of Ivan’s path also had Broward County officials on hold.

“I hesitate to mobilize anything at this time,” said Tony Carper, Broward County’s director of emergency management. “What people should be doing right now in anticipation of a hurricane warning is begin stocking up on supplies they may have depleted and keep their shutters up.”

Officials in Jamaica and Cuba did not have the luxury of time. Ivan would be there soon, and it already left a trail of death in Grenada, Tobago and Venezuela.

Jamaican leader P.J. Patterson urged his people to pray.

“We have to prepare for the worst case scenario,” Patterson told his people. “Let us pray for God’s care. This is a time that we must demonstrate that we are indeed our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.”

And then? No one could say.

After the storm hits Cuba, the steering currents weaken, forecasters said, bedeviling their task. Forecaster Lixion Avila called the four- and five-day prediction, which includes the period when Ivan will be near southern Florida, “highly uncertain.”

That complicated efforts for state officials, who faced the possibility of ordering evacuations of both coasts for a storm that might hit one.

‘Shell shocked’

Saying that he knows that many people are “shellshocked” by the twin punch of two hurricanes, Bush tried to prepare Floridians for the possibility that Ivan would bring even more devastation.

He also acknowledged significant challenges in providing prestorm guidance and post-storm relief if it strikes – crafting the evacuation, dealing with another possible run on gasoline and other provisions, coping with stress.

Florida already has signed emergency assistance agreements with states as far away as California, he said.

“Almost every one of our 67 counties have felt the impact of these first two hurricanes, and Ivan is going to deepen those wounds if it stays on its current course,” Gov. Bush said. “Ivan has the potential to be worse than anything we’ve ever seen so far.

“Today we’re not worried about hurricane amnesia anymore,” he said. “Now, we’re worried about hurricane anxiety.”

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(Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Noah Bierman, Wanda J. DeMarzo, Douglas Hanks III, Charles Rabin, Bob Radziewicz and Luisa Yanez contributed to this report.)

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(c) 2004, The Miami Herald.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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GRAPHIC (from KRT Graphics, 202-383-6064): 20040909 Storm Ivan, 20040909 Caribbean Fla map

AP-NY-09-09-04 2049EDT