At 1 a.m. EDT Saturday, Dennis was just north of Havana, about 95 miles south-southwest of Key West. Now a Category 2 storm, it was moving northwest at about 14 mph

As the storm passed east of Havana, waves of up to 10 feet crashed over the city's seawall. Fierce gusts of wind tore huge chunks of concrete off dilapidated colonial buildings and shattered glass globes from antique street lamps in the city's old section. Downed trees and utility poles littered roads.

The electricity had been shut off before the storm reached the city of 2 million to prevent injury from fallen power lines.

Huge waves swept away coastal homes as the storm's center made landfall on central Cuba's southern coast in the early afternoon. Civil defense officials said more than 1.5 million people left their homes to take shelter with family or friends or in government refuges.

Cuban television showed Defense Minister Raul Castro, the president's brother, touring storm-damaged areas along the southeast coast. Dozens of humble wooden homes in sparsely populated rural areas had been reduced to mounds of kindling. Corrugated metal roofs had been ripped off and twisted by the roaring winds, before being scattered across the countryside. A wooden sugar mill was missing its roof and parts of its sides.

The government had not issued damage estimates.

The storm had strengthened Friday morning to a Category 4 with winds reaching 150. It weakened steadily to about 110 mph Friday night, but was expected to gain strength as it emerged over the Florida Straits and into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico later Saturday.

It was the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record in the Caribbean, according to Colin McAdie, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm was on a track to reach the United States over the weekend. About a half-million people in coastal Alabama and tens of thousands more in the Florida Keys and low-lying areas of the Florida Gulf Coast were ordered to evacuate.

Hours before Cuba, Dennis struck Haiti and killed 10 people as it collapsed bridges, triggered landslides, inundated homes and blocked roads with downed power lines and trees.

Young Haitian men were charging $2 to carry travelers and their possessions across the Grand Goave River, which overflowed and collapsed a 300-foot bridge, cutting off Haiti's southwestern peninsula. Chief of Cabinet Michel Brunache said Friday that five people died on the collapsed bridge, and others were reported missing.

At least four people died in the southern town of Jacmel, said Jeff Delorges, of Haiti's Civil Protection agency. He did not have details. A tenth person was killed by a falling tree.

In Jamaica, a rescue helicopter was to airlift food and emergency supplies to hundreds of stranded islanders in at least seven eastern towns cut off by knee-deep floodwaters, said Nadene Newsome, spokeswoman for the country's emergency management office.

"Flooding has affected every parish of the island and it will increase as long as the rain continues throughout the day" Friday, she said.

Forecasters predict the storm will hit the United States anywhere from Florida to Louisiana by Sunday or Monday, the fourth storm in as many weeks to disrupt oil production.

The lower Florida Keys, including Key West, were on hurricane warning, while the southern part of the state, including Miami and Naples, were on tropical storm warning.

A hurricane watch was issued for portions of the northeastern U.S. Gulf Coast from the Steinhatchee River westward to the mouth of the Pearl River.

The U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo escaped the brunt of the storm. Heaving surf tore away a lifeguard tower at Windmill Beach and winds destroyed a bus shelter. A few power lines and tree branches were knocked down and there was minor flooding.

"Actually, everybody fared real well," said Navy Cmdr. Anne Reese.

American troops fixed metal shutters over the steel mesh windows of some prison cells overlooking the sea at Camp Delta, which is just 150 yards from the ocean.

The largest and most populous Caribbean island with 11.2 million people, Cuba suffers few hurricane casualties because the government cautiously evacuates people en masse, sometimes forcefully.

The hurricane center's lead forecaster, Martin Nelson, said it was the first time the Atlantic hurricane season had four named storms this early since record-keeping began in 1851. The season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

Last year, four catastrophic hurricanes – Charley, 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.

Associated Press writers Stevenson Jacobs in Morant Bay, Jamaica, Leonardo Aldridge in Les Cayes, Haiti, Ben Fox at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, and Vanessa Arrington in Cienfuegos, Cuba contributed to this report.