Hurricane Ike ripped off roofs in the southern Bahamas and Cuba scrambled to move hundreds of thousands of people inland.
A dangerous Category 4 hurricane with 215kph winds and a possible 5.5m storm surge, Ike bore down on Cuba's northeast coast after raging through the Turks and Caicos and Great Inagua, the Bahamas' southernmost island.
Residents of the Florida Keys, a 177km island chain connected by bridges with only one road out, were told to evacuate as a precaution.
Ike could follow a path similar to that of Hurricane Gustav through the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana and Texas, possibly threatening New Orleans.
Many of Cuba's 11 million people could be affected by Ike, which was expected to move ashore north of Guantanamo Bay and spend nearly two days over the long, narrow island.
Authorities used buses, trucks and other transportation to move thousands of tourists inland from Cuba's prime resorts along the northern coast from Guardalavaca in eastern Holguin to Varadero.
Ranchers herded cattle in the prime grazing areas of eastern Las Tunas and Camaguey to higher ground.
Ike was set to come ashore in Holguin, home of the nickel industry, Cuba's most important export, then move westward over the heart of the sugar industry. Holguin's mines and three processing plants in the mountains were shut down.
New misery for Haiti
The hurricane rained new misery on Haiti, where flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Hanna was believed to have killed at least 500 people around the port city of Gonaives.
‘I believe the death toll is much higher,’ Gonaives chief Mayor Stephen Moise said, adding it had started raining again, floodwaters were rising and bridges linking the city to the rest of the country had collapsed.
Ike's most likely track had it headed for the Texas-Louisiana border. But long-range forecasts have a large margin of error and a slight deviation could take it toward New Orleans.
Forecasters expected Ike to weaken to a Category 1 storm over Cuba but to regain Category 3 strength as it nears the U.S. Gulf coast.
