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MIAMI (AP) -- Even as Frances battered Florida, another hurricane formed Sunday in the central Atlantic and quickly strengthened with a potential for following a path similar to the one that Frances followed.

 

"You might want to be smart about whether you take down your shutters," Miami-Dade County Manager George Burgess said Sunday at a briefing on the aftermath of Frances.

 

Hurricane Ivan reached hurricane strength with sustained winds of 125 mph, becoming a Category 3 storm, the National Hurricane Center said.

 

It was about 820 miles east-southeast of Barbados, or more than 2,000 miles east-southeast of Miami, too far away to tell with any certainty whether it would hit the continental United States, the hurricane center said.

 

However, the center's map projections suggested a path across the Antilles and Hispaniola, possibly reaching Cuba about Friday.

 

The hurricane was due to reach Barbados by Tuesday and was expected to continue strengthening, drawing power from hundreds of square miles of warm water.

The company I work for has a plant in Barbados.

 

I read about Ivan last week. I hope Joe and the other guys and gals in the plant will be okay (40 or so people on staff at that plant - good people who do great work - very little returns on items made there).