By Jeff Franks
HAVANA (Reuters) - High winds and heavy rains whippedeastern Cuba on Sunday as Hurricane Ike closed in after addingto the misery and deaths in Haiti and ripping through thesouthern Bahamas on a path to the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico andpossibly New Orleans.
Crashing waves ahead of the Category 3 hurricane with 120miles per hour (195 kph) winds swept inland in the coastalstate of Baracoa, flooding low-lying areas and causing riversto back up over their banks.
In its latest advisory, the National Hurricane Center inMiami said the eye of Ike was just 30 miles (45 km) off Cuba'snortheastern coast, moving at 14 mph (22 kph).
It was expected to make landfall later on Sunday and beginwhat forecasters said could be a two-day trek through the heartof Cuba, still reeling from Hurricane Gustav's hard hit on thewest side of the long, narrow island last week.
Cuban officials said just over 1 million people had beenevacuated in a matter of hours on Sunday.
After traversing Cuba, forecasters said Ike would enter theGulf of Mexico, where 4,000 platforms produce 25 percent ofU.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas, and point towardLouisiana and Texas.
It may threaten New Orleans, the city swamped in 2005 byHurricane Katrina, which killed 1,500 people and caused $80billion in damages on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
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.
Before heading to Cuba, Ike dumped more heavy rain onHaiti, where officials said at least 47 people had died in highwaters, including 13 children.
It ripped off roofs and knocked over trees and power linesas it passed over Great Inagua, the Bahamas' southernmostisland and Britain's Turks and Caicos islands.
It hit the latter as a Category 4 storm with 135 mph (215kph) winds, damaging 80 percent of the houses on Grand Turk,home to about 2,500 of the islands' 22,000 residents,government spokesman Courtney Robinson said.
Haitian authorities said the 47 known storm victims died inIke-triggered floods in Cabaret, a town north of the capital,Port-au-Prince.
MOUNTING DEATH TOLL
"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."
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.
Cuban authorities used buses, trucks and othertransportation to move thousands of tourists inland from primeresorts along the northern coast. Ranchers herded cattle ingrazing areas of eastern Las Tunas and Camaguey to higherground.
In Havana, police with loudspeakers passed through thestreets urging people to take steps to protect their property.
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.
"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.
In Baracoa, near Cuba's eastern coast, reports on state-runtelevision said at least 200 homes had been destroyed, as23-foot-tall waves (7 meters) topped the seawall and went sixblocks into the city.
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has taken to writingcolumns since handing over power to brother Raul Castro, wroteon Sunday that the flow of international aid to Cuba sinceGustav showed that it had many friends who wanted to help.
He said, without providing details, that close allyVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez had taken "measures that makeup the most generous gesture of solidarity that our country hasknown."
Despite the hard blows from hurricanes, Castro said hebelieved Cubans would receive the aid they needed to recover.
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, Esteban Israel in Cuba, Michael Haskins in KeyWest, John Marquis in Nassau and Manuel Jimenez in theDominican Republic; Editing by Tom Brown and Vicki Allen)
