Authorities renewed urgent appeals Friday for people to move away from the coast before the worst of Hurricane Ivan was felt. But with heavy rain and winds buffeting the country, the head of the island emergency management department said only about 300 people were in the scores of open shelters.

Barbara Carby, director general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Disaster Management (ODPEM), said "we are concerned for their safety" as she made a new appeal for residents to use the shelters. Jamaica has a population of 2.7 million.

Authorities have appealed for 500,000 people to leave coastal areas most at risk from the massive storm that has killed at least 25 people in Grenada, Tobago, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

At 1500 GMT the eye of Ivan was located about 155 miles (245 km) southeast of Kingston, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The storm was churning toward the west-northwest near 12 mph (19 km/hr), a track expected to bring the core of Ivan near Jamaica late Friday or early Saturday the center added.

Ivan was packing sustained winds near 145 mph (230 km/hr) with higher gusts, and storm surge flooding of 5-8 feet (1.5-2.4 m) above normal tide levels, the center added. The powerful winds made Ivan a category four storm on the maximum-of-five-level Saffir-Simpson scale.

"Large and dangerous battering waves can be expected near the center of Ivan in the hurricane warning area," the center warned. "Rainfall amounts of 6-10 inches (15-25 cm) possibly causing life-threatening flash floods and mud slides can be expected along the path of Ivan."

Air Jamaica has cancelled all flights in and out of the country and all inter-island flights today, the Jamaica Gleaner reported.

On this heavily tourism-dependent island "all aircraft were ferried out of Kingston and Montego Bay to the United States last night until the hurricane passes. The airline has advised that if there is no major damage to the island's two international airports, and the authorities feel it is safe to reopen them it will resume some flights on schedule (Saturday) while others will be cancelled," the daily reported.

Carby said many people traditionally waited until the last minute before leaving while some had gone to the homes of family and friends.

The government sent buses to help move residents of areas considered most at risk.

One older woman, who was not identified, told Jamaican television people had survived hurricane Charley in 1951 and Gilbert in 1988 and they can ride this one out. Another old man said that if he was going to die, he preferred to do so in his own home. A number of persons said they were not too keen to leave as they did in 1988 as looters preyed on their properties.

Cubans also made preparations in case the hurricane hits the island, nearly one month after Hurricane Charley left five people dead there and an estimated one billion dollars in damage.

Authorities in Florida ordered tourists and mobile home residents to leave the Florida Keys, an island chain at the tip of the southeastern US state.

Grenada, a tiny island nation of 90,000 inhabitants, was 85 percent destroyed by the storm, according to Prime Minister Keith Mitchell. Power lines were down and hundreds of people have taken refuge in shelters. The number of dead in Grenada has risen to 17, the Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency said in a statement released Friday.

The toll still may rise because CDERA has not had access to rural areas, its spokesman Terry Ally said.

Most of the 250 prisoners who escaped when the prison in Grenada was destroyed by hurricane Ivan have been recaptured, but two serving life sentences for the murder of former prime minister Maurice Bishop in 1983 are among 17 still at large, Mitchell said Friday.

Mitchell confirmed a Trinidad radio station the two are Hudson Austin and Leon Cornwall. Austin was Bishop's strongman.

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