Hurricane Ike powers towards Cuba, Gulf

Dangerous Hurricane Ike roared towards Cuba with 215 kph winds yesterday and was expected to sweep into the Gulf of Mexico where it could threaten the US oilpatch and possibly New Orleans.

Cuban authorities scrambled to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in the eastern and central coastal areas using buses, trucks and whatever other transportation was available as Ike bore down as a fierce Category 4 hurricane that could flood the shore with 5.5 metres of water.

As Ike battered Britain's Turks and Caicos Islands and the southern Bahamas, residents of the Florida Keys, a 177-km island chain connected by bridges with only one road out, were told to evacuate as a precaution.

When it emerges from Cuba, Ike could follow a path similar to that of last week's Hurricane Gustav towards Louisiana and Texas. That would be a threat to New Orleans, the city swamped by Katrina three years ago, and the Gulf energy rigs, which account for a quarter of US oil and 15 per cent of natural gas output. Thousands of tourists staying at Cuba's prime resorts along the northern coast from Guardalavaca in eastern Holguin to Varadero in the west were being taken inland or to safe locations at resorts as hotels were boarded up.

Ranchers herded cattle in the prime grazing areas of eastern Las Tunas and Camaguey to higher ground, while port workers struggled to move cargo inland.

"We are at a disadvantage because there are no hills and mountains to break the wind," farm worker Artemio Madonadoemos said from the flatlands of Las Tunas.

"If the storm comes through here the damage will be enormous," he said before closing up his humble dwelling and heading for his brother's home in the city of Las Tunas.

Ike was set to come ashore in Holguin, home of the nickel industry, Cuba's most important export, then move westwards over the heart of the sugar industry. Holguin's mines and three processing plants in the mountains were shut down.

Ike was forecast to batter the islands in its path with flooding up to 5.5 metres above normal tides and to rain new misery on Haiti, where hundreds of people died in floods and mudslides caused by three storms in the past month.

By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), Ike was sweeping through the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British territory of about 22,000 people, and the sparsely populated southern Bahamas.

The centre of the storm was located 24 kilometres west-southwest of Great Inagua Island and was moving west at 21 kph, the US National Hurricane Centre said.