Hurricane Ike slams Turks and Caicos

The ferocious Category 4 storm raked the islands with shrieking winds as people hid at home or in emergency shelters.

Residents wade through a flooded street after heavy rains in Gonaives, Haiti, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008. Hurricane Ike damaged most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas, raked HShow more

PROVIDENCIALES, TURKS AND CAICOS // Hurricane Ike slammed into the Turks and Caicos late yesterday as a ferocious Category 4 storm, raking the low-lying island chain with shrieking winds as people hunkered down at home or in emergency shelters. As the massive grey wall of clouds descended on the islands, shopkeepers and homeowners in the city of Providenciales frantically covered windows with plywood and boats were hauled ashore or secured with multiple anchors.

"I am very, very nervous," said John Moore, a fishing boat captain, as he tied down his 61-foot vessel in a Providenciales cove. "It looks like it might go right over us, so that's not a good picture." The outer-bands of the storm brought fierce, palm-bending winds and a scattering of rain. Still, people lingered in the darkened streets or outside a couple of convenience stores that stayed open for last-minute shoppers. People entered into a makeshift shelter in a vocational school in the Five Cays neighbourhood. The US National Hurricane Center said Ike's eye was "near or over" the Turks and Caicos late Saturday night, local time.

The centre's website showed hurricane force winds from Ike battering the island. It was moving west-southwest about 24 kph with winds near 215 kph. Grand Turk, the capital of the Turks and Caicos, is about 10km long, and home to about 3,000 people. Several hundred evacuated before the storm. It has little natural protection from the sea and expected storm surge. Ike's path would take it by the southeastern Bahamas early today and near eastern Cuba tonight or early tomorrow.

Ike appeared then headed for the Gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana, the governor Bobby Jindal set up a task force to prepare for the possibility of more havoc, while Floridians stocked up on batteries, water and gas cans. The approach of the hurricane also raised alarm in Haiti, where officials issued a tropical storm warning and feared it could worsen deadly flooding. And Cuba, still recovering from a devastating hit by Category 4 Hurricane Gustav last month, was directly in Ike's projected path. Cuba's government warned people to be ready to take emergency action, but hotels said they had not yet started evacuating foreign guests. The Guantanamo Bay Navy base in southeast Cuba will go on "condition of readiness one" at 2am local time, meaning all ferries will be secured, beaches will be restricted and private cars will be banned from roads, said the Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Lamb.

*AP