Ferocious Hurricane Ike threatens Cuba, Gulf

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike charged toward Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico as a ferocious Category 4 storm on Saturday, while Tropical Storm Hanna drenched the U.S. Atlantic coast after barreling ashore in the Carolinas.

Ike's top sustained winds reached 135 miles per hour (215 kph), making it an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Ike alternately weakened and strengthened but was likely to remain a "major" hurricane of at least Category 3 as it hit Cuba, the forecasters said.

The densely populated Miami-Fort Lauderdale area in south Florida was not out of the line of fire, and visitors were ordered to flee the vulnerable Florida Keys island chain starting on Saturday.

But computer models indicated Ike was likely to sweep into Cuba late on Sunday, presenting a severe threat to sugar cane fields, the tourist hotels of Varadero and the crumbling colonial buildings of Havana.

The storm might then curve into the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of this week's Hurricane Gustav, plowing toward an area that produces a quarter of domestic U.S. oil, and slamming ashore near New Orleans, which was swamped and traumatized by Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

Katrina was a Category 3 when it struck near New Orleans on August 29, 2005, swamping the city and killing 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The deeper Ike goes into Cuba, the weaker it will be once it re-emerges over the Gulf of Mexico early next week, the hurricane center said.

"By day four, Ike is forecast to emerge back over open waters in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico," the agency said. "Global models suggest the environment will be favorable for strengthening and the ocean should be plenty warm."

Alerts went up across eastern Cuba on Saturday as residents shivered at the prospect of another major storm a week after Hurricane Gustav devastated parts of western Cuba.

In Havana, residents lined up at gas stations and searched stores for candles, crackers and canned goods after a forecaster warned on state television that "almost the entire country is in the danger zone."

"It looks like this year we will have no respite," Eduardo Gonzalez said from eastern Santiago de Cuba, "and if it continues like this we will have to live out the hurricane season in the shelters."

Hanna did not reach hurricane strength before sloshing ashore over North and South Carolina overnight after killing 500 people in Haiti with torrential rain.

Gonaives Police Commissioner Ernst Dorfeuille said floods had killed more than 495 people in that northern port city, although officials in the capital put the official tally lower.

"The number of people killed could even go beyond 500, but for the time being the official death toll for the country is 165, including 119 for Gonaives and its surroundings," said Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of the civil protection agency.  Continued...