By Marc Frank
HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike barrelled toward Cuba asan extremely dangerous Category 4 storm on Sunday and wasforecast to sweep into the central Gulf of Mexico as a largeand powerful storm echoing Hurricane Gustav.
Ike's top sustained winds reached 135 miles per hour (215kph), making it a savage Category 4 on the five-step SaffirSimpson scale of hurricane intensity, the U.S. NationalHurricane Centre said.
Forecasters said Ike could strengthen further beforesweeping into Cuba late on Sunday, severely threatening sugarcane fields, the tourist hotels of Varadero and the crumblingcolonial buildings of Havana.
The densely populated Miami-Fort Lauderdale area in southFlorida seemed an increasingly less likely target, but visitorswere ordered to flee the vulnerable Florida Keys island chainon Saturday.
Ike was forecast to curve into the Gulf of Mexico in thewake of this week's Hurricane Gustav, ploughing toward an areathat produces a quarter of domestic U.S. oil. Gustav slammedashore near New Orleans, which was swamped and traumatized byHurricane Katrina three years ago but largely spared by Gustav.
Oil companies had begun returning workers to the offshoreplatforms that were evacuated before Gustav hit Louisiana onMonday west of New Orleans. But one company, Shell Oil Co.,said on Saturday it had stopped returning workers in case newevacuations were needed.
The deeper Ike goes into Cuba, the weaker it will be onceit re-emerges over the Gulf of Mexico. But over water it wasexpected to rapidly regain its former intensity.
"In five days there will be a large hurricane in thecentral Gulf of Mexico," the hurricane centre said.
Alerts went up across eastern Cuba as residents shivered atthe prospect of another major storm a week after HurricaneGustav devastated parts of western Cuba. Tourists wereevacuated from the Guardalavaca resort on Holguin province'snorthern coast, as were thousands of students picking coffee inthe mountains.
'THE DANGER ZONE'
In Havana, residents lined up at gas stations and searchedstores for candles, crackers and canned goods after aforecaster warned on state television that "almost the entirecountry is in the danger zone."
"It looks like this year we will have no respite," EduardoGonzalez said from eastern Santiago de Cuba, "and if itcontinues like this we will have to live out the hurricaneseason in the shelters."
Ike pounded Britain's Turks and Caicos islands on Saturdayon a course that would take it through the southern Bahamas andthen westward across the length of Cuba. By 5 a.m. (10 a.m.British time) the centre of the storm was east of Great InaguaIsland.
Ike's centre will swirl through the south-eastern BahamasSunday morning and near or over eastern Cuba in the evening,the hurricane centre said.
Ike was forecast to batter the islands in its path withstorm surge flooding up to 18 feet (5.5 metres) above normaltides. It was also expected to rain new misery on Haiti, wherehundreds of people died in flooding and mudslides caused bythree earlier storms in the last month.
In the low-lying Florida Keys, visitors were ordered out onSaturday and residents were told to evacuate on Sunday alongthe lone road linking the island chain to the mainland.
John Vagnoni, owner of the Green Parrot Bar in Key West,said there would be no hurricane party there.
"We don't do a hurricane party, per se, at the Parrot,"Vagnoni said. "Let's take care of our own houses, be safe andthen, afterward, there will be plenty of time to have a party.I'd much rather have a survivors' party."
Ike set its sights on Cuba after Tropical Storm Hannasloshed ashore over North and South Carolina early Saturdaymorning, felling trees and causing power outages and isolatedflooding.
Hanna sped northeast along the U.S. East Coast, bringingheavy rains to the mid-Atlantic states and southern NewEngland, spinning off a tornado that damaged about 100 homes inAllentown, Pennsylvania.
In the New York metropolitan area, gusts and downpourshalted play at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, delaying thewomen's finals and one men's semi-final until Sunday. Airportsstayed open but flights were delayed by up to three hours.
At 5 a.m. (0900 GMT), Hanna still had 50 mph (85 kph) windsbut lost its tropical characteristics as it moved northeastthrough New England, with rain expected to end across Maine bysunrise.
(Additional reporting by Michael Haskins in Key West andChristopher Michaud in New York; Writing by Jane Sutton andMichael Christie, editing by Philip Barbara)
