Hurricane Ike grows to Category 4 strength in US

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos: Hurricane Ike roared across the Turks and Caicos on Sunday as a ferocious Category 4 storm, as people sought refuge from its howling winds in emergency shelters or in their homes.

Shopkeepers and homeowners in Providenciales frantically boarded up windows and residents headed to makeshift shelters late on Saturday as Ike's massive gray wall of clouds neared the low-lying island chain island.

The airport in Providenciales closed after thousands of tourists and residents of the typically tranquil island chain evacuated.

The US National Hurricane Center said Ike's eye was passing over the Turks and Caicos early on Sunday. The centre's website showed hurricane force winds from Ike battering the island. It was moving west about 24 kph with winds near 215 kph. Its path would take it by the southeastern Bahamas early on Sunday and near eastern Cuba on Sunday night or early Monday.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal set up a task force to prepare for the possibility of more havoc, while officials in the Florida Keys planned to start a phased evacuation for residents on Sunday morning after telling visitors a day earlier to get out. Ike was forecast to affect the Keys starting on Monday night on a potential track for the central Gulf.

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.

Turks and Caicos Premier Michael Misick said his government opened shelters throughout the islands and brought in an emergency food shipment.

Tourists were urged to leave the Bahamas, and authorities in the Dominican Republic began evacuating dozens of families who live on the banks of a river that could flood with waters from two already overfilled dams.