By Jay Ehrhart
The Associated Press

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands - Hurricane Ivan battered the Cayman Islands with ferocious 150-mph winds Sunday - flooding homes, ripping off roofs and toppling trees three stories tall as its powerful eye thundered past just offshore.

Ivan has killed at least 60 people across the Caribbean and was expected today to strike western Cuba, where residents have dubbed the storm "Ivan the Terrible." More than 1 million Cubans were evacuated from homes.

The storm also could brush the Florida Keys and parts of Florida's Gulf Coast. Mexico issued a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning for the Yucatan Peninsula.

The hurricane, which grew to the most powerful Category 5 with 165 mph winds Saturday, lost some strength before tearing into the wealthy Cayman Islands chain, a popular scuba diving destination and banking center.

"It's as bad as it can possibly get," Justin Uzzell, 35, said by phone from his fifth-floor refuge in Grand Cayman.

"It's a horizontal blizzard. The air is just foam."

High winds prevented officials from assessing damage immediately.

At 8 p.m. Sunday, Ivan's eye was about 210 miles southeast of Cuba's western tip. Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles, and tropical storm-force winds extended 175 miles. Ivan was moving west-northwest at about 10 mph and was expected to turn northwest by today.

It was projected to pass near or over Cuba's western end by this afternoon or evening. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm surge could reach 25 feet with battering waves.

The Cayman Islands were better prepared for punishment than Grenada and Jamaica, which were slammed by Ivan last week - though Jamaica was spared a direct hit Saturday. The Caymans have strict building codes and none of the shantytowns and tin shacks common in the Caribbean.

The Hurricane Center said ham radio operators on Grand Cayman reported that people were standing on the roofs of homes because of storm surges of up to 8 feet above normal tide levels.

While it was almost a direct hit on Grand Cayman, the eye of the storm did not make landfall, passing instead over water just south of the island, said Rafael Mojica, a Hurricane Center meteorologist.

Still, emergency officials said residents from all parts of the island were reporting blown-off roofs and flooded homes as Ivan's shrieking winds and driving rain approached Grand Cayman, the largest of three islands that comprise the British territory of 45,000 people.

Though there were no immediate reports of injuries in the Caymans, the death toll elsewhere rose as hospital officials in Jamaica reported four more deaths, for a total of 15. At least 34 people were killed in Grenada, where the hurricane left widespread destruction. Scattered deaths occurred on other islands and in Venezuela.

In Cuba, the threatened area includes densely populated Havana, where traffic was light Sunday as most took shelter. About 1.3 million people across the island of 11.2 million were evacuated, with most seeking refuge with relatives.

"This country is prepared to face this hurricane," President Fidel Castro said. The storm is the most powerful to threaten the nation since Castro came to power in 1959.

The last Category 5 storm to make landfall in the Caribbean was Hurricane David, which devastated the Dominican Republic in 1979.