By Joseph Guyler Delva
GONAIVES, Haiti (Reuters) - Powerful Hurricane Ike weakenedslightly as it charged across the Atlantic toward the Bahamasand the United States on Thursday while Tropical Storm Hanna'sdeath toll from floods in Haiti grew to 90.
Campgrounds were closed and some evacuations began on NorthCarolina's Outer Banks as Hanna churned east of the far-flungBahamian chain of 700 islands on a path toward the southeasternU.S. states on Saturday.
Ike posed no immediate threat to land and it was too earlyto say if it would threaten Caribbean islands, the U.S. EastCoast or the U.S. oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. TropicalStorm Josephine churned in Ike's wake across the Atlantic.
The trio of Atlantic storms followed Hurricane Gustav'srampage through the Caribbean to the Louisiana coast, where itslammed ashore on Monday west of New Orleans, largely sparingthe city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
The flurry was a clear signal that this six-month hurricaneseason was on track to be a ferociously busy one, though notlike record-busting 2005 when 28 tropical storms, includingKatrina, rolled across the Atlantic and Caribbean.
HAITI TOLL RISES
In the Haitian port city of Gonaives, residents roamed thestreets hunting for food as floodwaters that had trappedhundreds on rooftops receded, leaving behind deep piles of mudand the carcasses of goats, pigs and dogs.
Crowds of people knocked on the windows of passing cars,pleading for food and water.
"I have nothing to eat," resident Jean Pierre Moreau said."No food, no water, and no one seems to be able to help."
At least 90 people died in floods and mudslides triggeredby Hanna, 37 in the Gonaives area alone, Haiti's civilprotection office said.
Hanna was the third deadly storm to strike Haiti in weeks.Gustav previously killed at least 75 people and Tropical StormFay killed more than 50.
President Rene Preval called the situation "catastrophic,"comparing it to floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne in September2004 that killed more than 3,000 people around Gonaives.
Hanna weakened slightly on Thursday. Its top sustainedwinds were at 65 mph (105 kph) and the U.S. National HurricaneCentre expected it to remain below the hurricane threshold of74 mph (120 kph) through landfall around the SouthCarolina-North Carolina border early Saturday.
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley declared a state ofemergency and his South Carolina counterpart, Mark Sanford,advised people in two northern coastal counties to evacuate.Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine also declared a state of emergency.
On North Carolina's fragile Outer Banks, beachgoers tookadvantage of sunny skies and light winds, but the National ParkService closed campgrounds on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands anda mandatory evacuation of isolated Cape Lookout NationalSeashore was under way.
'DAMP SQUIB'
Hanna's threat to the Bahamas ebbed as the storm churned tothe east.
"It's been a bit of a damp squib (dud)," said KathleenRalph, a resident of Marsh Harbour, a tourist destinationvirtually shut down by the storm. "We're now more concernedabout Hurricane Ike, which looks stronger."
In Nassau, the Bahamian capital, some shops along BayStreet, the main tourist area, boarded up, and jewellery andliquor stores pulled down metal shutters, less out of concernabout Hanna than powerful Ike, which was expected to be in thenorthern Bahamas by Tuesday as a "major" Category 3 hurricane.
Ike's top sustained winds weakened to 135 mph (217 kph) by5 p.m. EDT (10 p.m. British time) as it moved across theAtlantic 505 miles (810 km) north-northeast of the LeewardIslands, but it remained an extremely dangerous Category 4storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity.
The Miami-based hurricane centre said it was too early tosay where Ike might go. But the storm has drawn the attentionof energy companies running the 4,000 offshore platforms in theGulf of Mexico that provide the United States with a quarter ofits crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.
Although Florida's Kennedy Space Centre appeared to be inIke's long-range target, NASA hauled the space shuttle Atlantisto its seaside launch pad on Thursday for its mission to theHubble Space Telescope next month.
Josephine weakened to a 45-mph (72-kph) storm as it moved590 miles (950 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands.
(Additional reporting by John Marquis in Nassau; Writing byJim Loney; Editing by Xavier Briand)
