Hurricane Ivan Takes a Southward Track
Continued coverage. Latest from AP/Yahoo:

Hurricane Ivan killed at least 20 people as it laid waste to the tiny spice island of Grenada, where looting hampered relief efforts on Wednesday as the storm swept through the Caribbean heading northwest.

Ivan, a dangerous Category 4 storm on a five-step scale of hurricane intensity, slammed into Grenada, a volcanic island of 90,000 people in the southeastern Caribbean on Tuesday, flattening or badly damaging homes and cutting power.

"Our diplomats are reporting that there are 20 confirmed deaths," said a State Department official in Washington.

The airport in the former British colony was closed and phone service was interrupted, so the extent of the damage began to emerge only on Wednesday....

Crews cleared the airport runway so emergency flights could land, but looting broke out and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency urged aid groups to send only essential personnel until police could guarantee their safe passage.

Police, troops and ham radio operators were en route from neighboring islands to help relieve what CDERA called a serious security situation. "There is some looting in the capital city, so I think that is causing some concern," said a CDERA manager Donovan Gentles.

Ivan also swiped at islands near Grenada in the southeastern Caribbean on Tuesday, killing two people. On the resort isle of Tobago, sister island to Trinidad, the storm killed a woman when a tree fell on her house, ripped off dozens of roofs and knocked out power.

In Barbados, a 75-year-old woman was killed as she searched for her cats during the storm, and 220 houses were damaged....

It was racing west-northwest at 17 mph on a course that would take it over Jamaica on Friday.

The hurricane center's longer-term forecast, with a wide margin for change, had the storm passing over Cuba on Sunday and off Florida's southwest coast on Monday.

Predictions here from the US NOAA. Not sure if this image and the related information are static, or if they update over time. (Update: they update.)