CASTRIES, St. Lucia - A strengthening Hurricane Dean tore through the eastern Caribbean islands of St. Lucia and Martinique on Friday, ripping the roofs from a hospital and homes, knocking out power, and flooding roads with rain and seawater. A 62-year-old man drowned, in the storm's first death.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season, which grew into a Category 3 on Friday with 125 mph winds, is expected to strengthen over the warm waters of the Caribbean, hit Jamaica on Sunday and climb to Category 4 status before clipping Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It was projected to steer into the Gulf of Mexico by Wednesday, threatening the U.S.-Mexico border area.

Residents on the French island of Martinique reported landslides and said scores of people were left homeless.

"The sea swelled, crossed the road and invaded homes," said a woman in southern Martinique who identified herself as Lucie in a call to local radio.

On St. Lucia, a former British colony just south of Martinique, Dean blew the corrugated metal roof off the pediatric ward at Victoria Hospital in Castries, the capital, but patients already were evacuated and no injuries were reported, said acting hospital director Hubert Emmanuel.

Buildings across this eastern Caribbean island lost their roofs, often made of corrugated metal. With utility poles down, the power company turned off electricity on the island to prevent electrocutions.

"We don't have a roof...everything is exposed. We tried to save what we could," said Josephine Marcelus in Morne Rouge, a town in northern Martinique. "We sealed ourselves in one room, praying that the hurricane stops blowing over Martinique."

St. Lucia state radio reported the capital was flooded and cluttered with wind-blown debris. Boulders from a sea wall were shoved onto roads by the force of storm surges. A boat sat in the road, lifted from the sea by the storm.

A 62-year-old man was swept away in a rain-swollen river while attempting to retrieve a cow, in the storm's first death, police said.