Just when we thought things could not get any worse another hurricane is heading towards Cuba. This time is called PALOMA and although is not as bad as previous GUSTAV and IKE last September the Cuban goverment is not taking any chances and is evacuating the southern- central part of the Island.

Tracking northeast to strike Cuba’s south-central coast late Saturday, and with Havana still reeling from a devastating storm season, Paloma would be the fifth to crash into the island this year.

The island began mobilizing its defenses in readiness for the tempest — preparing total evacuations of low-lying regions and coastal cities on the southern coast, prepping medical teams and equipping shelters for residents and up to 3,000 foreign tourists.

Cuba declared a hurricane warning for its central and eastern provinces Friday, covering Sancti Spiritus, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, civil defense officials said.

In Holguin province, the area most devastated by Hurricane Ike in September, head of the region’s Civil Defense Council Miguel Diaz-Canel ordered emergency measures to protect life and property.

Gladys Sanchez, a resident of Minas, north of the central city of Camaguey told AFP by telephone that “no one had expected another hurricane.”

“There are people here who are still homeless,” she said, adding that local residents had just begun to recover from the previous storms.

“It has been raining here since morning — everything is dark,” she said.

The 2008 hurricane season, including devastating Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, has killed hundreds across the Caribbean and Central America and wrought billions of dollars in damage across the region.

Gustav and Ike, which struck Cuba on August 30 and September 9, caused an estimated 9.3 billion dollars in damage, almost double the original estimates, according to official reports.

In the Caribbean’s most populous island nation, with more than 11 million people, the storms have damaged some tourism infrastructure and destroyed about 80 percent of crops.