CASTRO WELCOMES HURRICANE EVACUEES TO PALACE.

Byline: Associated Press 

President Fidel Castro toured Cuba on Friday, vowing to win the ``battle against nature'' after Hurricane Lili slashed the island with 90 mph winds and driving rains, collapsing buildings and forcing thousands of residents from their homes.

Castro, who had warned of possible ``catastrophic'' damage from the hurricane, welcomed 100 of the country's 30,000 evacuees into the Revolution Palace, where his cabinet meets.

``You have to feel as if at home here,'' Castro said as they arrived Thursday night. ``No storm will tear this down.''

State news media had no immediate reports of injuries, but Olivet Santana de la Pena, a civil defense worker in the northwestern coastal city of Matanzas, said a man was seriously hurt there when a tree fell on him.

By midday, with Lili's center departed, residents of Matanzas, 90 miles south of Florida, were starting to sweep up streets. Children jumped up and down on a storm-downed palm tree branch, using it as a trampoline.

The storm killed eight people in Central America earlier this week.

Electrical power, cut for most Havana residents Thursday night as a precautionary measure, was being gradually restored Friday afternoon.

Castro told state radio that 16,500 tons of citrus, as well as plantain and ground root crops had been damaged on the Isle of Youth, south of the mainland.

There was no official report of damage to Cuba's crucial sugar crops. A 1993 storm caused heavy losses to the island's agriculture.

The radio also reported 34 houses destroyed in the eastern province of Santiago, where 111 were partially damaged and 720 more suffered roof damage. Many houses in Santiago have corrugated metal or loose tile roofing.

At least 10 buildings suffered partial collapses in Havana.

Both cities are filled with beautiful but decaying colonial-era structures. Officials had earlier expressed fear the storm might cause wider damage to Old Havana.

A hurricane warning was in effect late Friday afternoon for mainland Cuba between Matanzas and Camaguey provinces, and for the central and northwest Bahamas.

At 2 p.m. PDT Friday, the hurricane's center had exited the north coast of Cuba near Caibarien, and was located about 125 miles southwest of Andros Island in the Bahamas. The storm was moving east-northeast at about 14 mph. Continuing on this track, it was expected to move through the central Bahamas, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.

In Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, schools closed early Friday, the local airline canceled flights, and customers flocked to grocery stores as residents prepared for the hurricane's overnight arrival.

Tropical storm warnings were lifted for the Florida Keys. ``We just barely missed it,'' Florida state meteorologist Mike Rucker said.