By Marc Frank
HAVANA (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike killed at least 37 peoplein Haiti and ripped off rooftops in the southern Bahamas onSunday as Cuba scrambled to get hundreds of thousands out ofthe path of a storm headed toward the U.S. Gulf oil patch andpossibly New Orleans.
Despite weakening slightly, Ike was still a dangerousCategory 3 hurricane with 120 mph (195 kph) winds and apossible 12-foot (3.6-metre) storm surge.
It bore down on Cuba's coast after dumping more heavy rainon Haiti and raging through Britain's Turks and Caicos, andGreat Inagua, the Bahamas' southernmost island.
"This one is quite severe," said Inagua resident ShanieRoker. "There is a lot of wind and rain. Roofs in Matthew Townare being damaged and trees are coming down."
Residents of the Florida Keys, a 110-mile (177-km) islandchain connected by bridges with only one road out, were told toevacuate as a precaution.
Ike could follow a path similar to Hurricane Gustav throughthe Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana and Texas. It may threatenNew Orleans, the city swamped by Hurricane Katrina three yearsago, and the Gulf energy rigs that account for a quarter ofU.S. oil output and 15 percent of natural gas output.
The hurricane rained new misery on Haiti. Authorities saidat least 37 people, including 13 children, were killed byfloods triggered by Ike in Cabaret, a town north of thecapital, Port-au-Prince.
"The whole village is flooded," civil protection officialMoise Jean-Pierre said. "The death toll could go higher."
Flooding from Tropical Storm Hanna last week was believedto have killed at least 500 people around the port city ofGonaives.
On Sunday, rain from Ike was causing the La Quinte river torise again and floodwaters were seeping back into Gonaives,Mayor Stephen Moise said. All of the bridges linking the cityto the rest of the country had collapsed.
"Gonaives is really a devastated and isolated city," hesaid. "We cannot bear another hurricane."
PATH ACROSS CUBA
In the neighbouring Dominican Republic, a 60-year-old manwas killed by a falling palm tree and some 41,000 people weredriven from their homes by rain and gusty winds.
Many of Cuba's 11 million people could be affected by Ike,which was expected to hit land north of Guantanamo Bay -- hometo the controversial U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects --and spend nearly two days over the long, narrow island.
By 5 p.m. EDT (10:00 p.m. British time), the centre of Ikewas 75 miles (120 km) north-northeast of Guantanamo.
Authorities used buses, trucks and other transportation tomove thousands of tourists inland from Cuba's prime resortsalong the northern coast. Ranchers herded cattle in grazingareas of eastern Las Tunas and Camaguey to higher ground.
Ike was set to come ashore in Holguin, home of the nickelindustry, Cuba's most important export, then move westward overthe heart of the sugar industry. Holguin's mines and threeprocessing plants in the mountains were shut down.
Holguin and neighbouring provinces have not been hit by astorm of Ike's power in more than 50 years.
"I've never seen a hurricane pass over this city and I'mterribly frightened," university student Yaneisy Betancourtsaid by telephone from the port city of Nuevitas.
The storm hit the eastern islands of the Turks and Caicosas a Category 4 storm with 135 mph (215 kph) winds, damaging 80percent of the houses on Grand Turk, home to about 2,500 of theislands' 22,000 residents, government spokesman CourtneyRobinson said.
"There's a lot of flooding. Power lines are down.Communications lines are out," he said.
In the Florida Keys, a steady stream of traffic moved alongthe Overseas Highway as some people evacuated even though Ikewas expected to pass at least 100 miles (160 km) to the south.
Ike was forecast to curve into the Gulf in the wake ofGustav, which went ashore just west of New Orleans last week,sparing the city traumatized by Katrina in 2005.
Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused about $80 billiondamage on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Ike's most likely track had it aimed at the Texas-Louisianaborder. But long-range forecasts have a large margin of errorand any deviation could take it toward New Orleans.
Forecasters expected Ike to weaken to a Category 1 storm onthe five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale over Cuba but toregain Category 3 strength as it nears the U.S. Gulf coast.
Oil companies had begun returning workers to the offshoreplatforms that were evacuated before Gustav hit but beganpreparing for the arrival of Ike.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva inPort-au-Prince, Michael Haskins in Key West, John Marquis inNassau and Manuel Jimenez in the Dominican Republic; Writing byJim Loney; Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan)
