"We are going nowhere," Byron Thompson said in the former buccaneer town of Port Royal, settled by pirate Henry Morgan in the 17th century. "In fact, if you come by here later today you will see me drinking rum over in that bar with some friends."
Dean packed sustained winds of 145 miles per hour (230 kph) and its eye was about 135 miles (215 km) west-southwest of Kingston at 11 pm EDT (0300 on Monday GMT).
HEADED FOR MEXICO
Storm warnings were also in effect for the Caymans and parts of Mexico, Cuba, Haiti and Belize. The latest computer tracking models forecast Dean would spare the US Gulf Coast but slam into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, cross the Bay of Campeche and then hit central Mexico.
Thousands of frightened tourists on Mexico's Caribbean coast stood in line for hours at airports to flee before Dean's expected arrival.
Four people were killed in Haiti, where landslides destroyed several hundred houses, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
It said that brought to at least nine the number killed by Dean since it roared into the Caribbean as the first hurricane of what is expected to be an active 2007 Atlantic season.
Risk modeling company EQECAT Inc estimated insured losses from Dean's rampage through the Caribbean islands at $1.5 billion to $3 billion, most of it in Jamaica.
Dean was moving west at 20 mph (32 kph) and was being watched closely by energy markets, which have been nervous since a series of storms in 2004 and 2005 toppled Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, flooded refineries and cut pipelines.
Mexico's Pemex oil company began evacuating 13,360 workers from its Gulf rigs.
The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour hastily left the orbiting International Space Station so it can land a day early in case the storm forces NASA to evacuate its Houston center.
Category 5 hurricanes are rare but in 2005 there were four, including Katrina, reinforcing research that suggests global warming may increase the strength of tropical cyclones.
