By Jeff Franks
HAVANA (Reuters) - A weakened Hurricane Ike swept towardwestern Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico oil fields early on Tuesdayafter its high winds and heavy rains ripped a wide swath ofdestruction through the eastern side of the island, killing atleast four people.
With top sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (130 km perhour), Ike had fallen to a Category 1 storm after it blew intothe Caribbean Sea and hugged the Cuban coast. The storm wasmoving west-northwest at 2 a.m. EDT (7:00 a.m. British time) at13 mph (20 kph) and about 95 miles (150 km) southeast ofHavana.
State-run Cuban media reported widespread damage throughoutthe eastern provinces and showed videos of toppled trees,destroyed homes, downed power lines and flooded towns,inundated by up to 10 inches (25 cm) of rain, swollen riversand, along the coast, a surging sea.
Cuban television said four people died in the storm,including two men who were electrocuted when they tried to takedown an antenna that fell into an electric line, a woman killedwhen her house collapsed and a man crushed when a tree blewover onto his home. Hurricane deaths are rare in Cuba where thegovernment conducts mass evacuations.
The Cuban weather service said Ike was unlikely to regainstrength before coming ashore unless it moved away from land,where the 89-degree Fahrenheit (32-Celsius) waters of theCaribbean could fire it up.
Forecasts called for Ike to take a path similar to that ofHurricane Gustav, which devastated the Isle of Youth and thewestern province of Pinar del Rio with 150 mph (240 kph) windsand two days later hit Louisiana on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
It was expected to emerge into the Gulf on Tuesday andregain strength on a path through the heart of the offshore oilfields that produce a quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of itsnatural gas.
Energy companies, which shut down most Gulf oil and gasproduction during Gustav, delayed restarting the flow becauseof Ike, a decision that was likely to pare inventories incoming weeks. Shell Oil and other energy companies said theywere evacuating workers from offshore rigs.
Forecasters said isolated tornadoes might pop up over theFlorida Keys and extreme South Florida.
ECONOMIC TOLL
The U.S. National Hurricane Centre said the storm waspointed toward Texas. New Orleans, the city swamped in 2005when Hurricane Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused $80billion (46 billion pounds) in damage along the U.S. GulfCoast, appeared an increasingly unlikely target after thehurricane Centre shifted Ike's expected track southward late onMonday.
Gustav just missed low-lying New Orleans, which isprotected by floodwalls and levees.
Ike tore roofs off houses when it hit Britain's Turks andCaicos Islands as a ferocious Category 4 hurricane on thefive-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, and floods triggeredby its torrential rains were blamed for at least 66 deaths inHaiti, where Tropical Storm Hanna killed 500 last week.
The U.S. Navy ship Kearsarge arrived near Haiti on Mondaywith eight helicopters and three landing craft to help deliverrelief supplies, the U.S. military said.
Cuba evacuated 1.8 million people ahead of Ike.
The storm was expected to take a toll on the economy ofCuba, still reeling from the destruction of more than 100,000homes by Gustav.
As it passed over the eastern provinces, Ike swept throughthe main growing regions for sugar and coffee and shut downCuba's nickel mines and processing plants.
People in the stricken area reported that Ike strippedripening beans from coffee bushes and levelled fields of sugarcane as it pounded the area for hours.
Sugar prices rose as Ike moved across the key Caribbeangrowing region.
Production of nickel, the island's top export, was stoppedas the storm approached on Sunday and remained closed Monday.Nickel production is located in the state of Holguin, where Ikemade landfall on Sunday with 120 mph (195 kph) winds and whichbore the full brunt of the storm.
"It doesn't seem like Ike wants to leave, and now the riveris overflowing," said Evelio Hernandez, a farmer in Camaguey,330 miles (534 km) southeast of Havana. "In the end, it's allbad news."
The Cuban government promised to provide aid quickly tostorm victims, but Eduardo Hernandez, in Holguin 460 miles (743km) from the Cuban capital, said something more may be needed.
"We are going to have to call on our African gods torecover from this," he said.
Across the Florida Straits, 90 miles (144 km) to the north,schools, hospitals and government offices were closed in theFlorida Keys, a 110-mile (177-km) island chain connected by asingle road.
The islands were not expected to take a direct hit, buttourists were evacuated. Residents had also been ordered outbut that measure was allowed to expire as Ike took a moresoutherly route.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva inPort-au-Prince, Rosa Tania Valdes, Marc Frank and EstebanIsrael in Havana, Erwin Seba in Houston, Richard Valdmanis inNew York; Editing by Tom Brown and Philip Barbara)
