Prime Minister P.J. Patterson ordered government offices to close and instructed disaster authorities to draw up plans to evacuate thousands. Many islanders refused to seek shelter during Dennis, fearful of leaving their belongings unguarded.

The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands and authorized the departure of non-emergency embassy staff.

In Grand Cayman, Texan Carolyn Parker was more apprehensive than she's ever been in 20 years as a resident of the Cayman Islands. "Ivan was pretty nasty, and I'm scared to go through that again," said the retired police officer.

Saturday morning, Emily was centered about 180 miles south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and 440 miles southeast of Grand Cayman. It was moving west-northwest near 18 mph.

Emily's eye was projected to come within 79 miles of Grand Cayman Island on Sunday, coming closest to the island's famous Seven Mile Beach, the Cayman Islands government warned residents and raised its hurricane watch to a warning.

"It is projected to pass much too close to us for anyone to ignore the possibility that we could be directly impacted," the chairman of Cayman's National Hurricane Committee, Donnie Ebanks, said after a meeting Friday.

Jamaica was on hurricane warning and Haiti on tropical storm warning. Mexico was expected to post a hurricane watch for the eastern Yucatan later Saturday.

Emily trails Hurricane Dennis, which destroyed crops and killed 25 people in Haiti and 16 in Cuba last week.

Last year, three catastrophic hurricanes - Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - tore through the Caribbean with a collective ferocity not seen in years, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Emily struck hard in Grenada, tearing the roofs off more than 2,000 homes and destroying 100 others on the main island, the National Disaster Management Agency said.

Officials said they believed the destruction was even worse in the outlying islands of Carriacou and Petit Martinique, where residents were without electricity and water.

Landslides and fallen trees blocked roads, streets were flooded and crops were destroyed.

All three islands threatened this weekend suffered greatly from Hurricane Ivan last year, which killed 17 people in Jamaica and 39 in Grenada, where it left a wasteland of ruined buildings and damaged 90 percent of the historic Georgian buildings in the capital, St. George's.

Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, addressing the nation Friday, urged Grenadians to mobilize to rebuild but noted it would be hard, especially for farmers who "were totally wiped out once again."

In Trinidad, widespread flooding triggered landslides that cut off two east-coast communities, marooning hundreds. At least one house washed away and hundreds were without water or electricity, officials said.

The hurricane brought heavy rains and flooding to Venezuela, and forced 64 families out of homes when rivers overflowed their banks, the government said.

As the storm moved away Friday , it lifted restrictions on maritime travel that had grounded oil tankers in the world's fifth largest oil exporter.

The Organization of American States held an emergency meeting of its disaster committee Friday, expressing concern at the prospect of a "severe economic setback" to countries hit by hurricanes, especially Grenada.

Forecasters have predicted up to 15 Atlantic tropical storms this year, including three to five major hurricanes. The hurricane season began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

Associated Press Writers Jorge Rueda in Cumana, Venezuela, Loren Brown in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and Michael Bascombe in St. George's, Grenada, contributed to this report.