Tropical Storm Isaac churned waves as high as 10 feet in the Caribbean on Thursday, causing Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to prepare for torrential rains and threatened to become a hurricane that could take a shot at Florida just as Republicans gather for their national convention.
The National Hurricane Center say said Tropical storm Isaac will likely turn into a Category 1 hurricane by Friday as it nears the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was expected to weaken a little while heading over their island and Cuba, then possibly move on toward Florida as a hurricane by Monday.
At the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in southeast Cuba on Wednesday, authorities said Isaac had forced the postponement of pretrial hearings that were to begin on Thursday for five prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks.
The National Weather Service is forecasting that Tropical Storm Isaac will hit the naval base at Guantanamo, on the southeastern tip of the island, Saturday morning. A military statement said winds of nearly 60 mph are expected.
Judge James Pohl, who is overseeing the proceedings in the Sept. 11 case, ruled that the start of the pretrial hearings, scheduled for Thursday, would be delayed. The hearings had already been postponed by one day because of an interruption in the government's computer network, which was caused by a deadly train derailment in Maryland, according to the Washington Post.
Tropical Storm Isaac was projected to weaken to a tropical storm over Haiti and then pass over Cuba before strengthening into a hurricane in the Florida Straits between Cuba and Florida. Its exact path after that remained uncertain.
Some computer models showed Isaac shifting slightly to the west and eventually moving parallel to Florida's western coastline. Others forecast the storm to make landfall in South Florida and then move inland.
