Hurricane Ike barrelled toward Cuba as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm today and was forecast to sweep into the central Gulf of Mexico as a large and powerful storm echoing Hurricane Gustav.
Cuban authorities scrambled to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people in the eastern and central coastal areas using buses, trucks and whatever other transportation was available as Ike bore down as a fierce Category 4 hurricane that could flood the shore with 18 feet of water.
Forecasters said Ike could strengthen further before sweeping into Cuba late today, severely threatening sugar cane fields, the tourist hotels of Varadero and the crumbling colonial buildings of Havana.
As Ike battered Britain's Turks and Caicos Islands and the southern Bahamas, residents of the Florida Keys, a 110-mile island chain connected by bridges with only one road out, were told to evacuate as a precaution.
Thousands of tourists staying at Cuba's prime resorts along the northern coast from Guardalavaca in eastern Holguin to Varadero in the west were being taken inland or to safe locations at resorts as hotels were boarded up.
Ranchers herded cattle in the prime grazing areas of eastern Las Tunas and Camaguey to higher ground, while port workers struggled to move cargo inland.
"We are at a disadvantage because there are no hills and mountains to break the wind," farm worker Artemio Madonadoemos said from the flatlands of Las Tunas.
When it emerges from Cuba, Ike could follow a path similar to that of last week's Hurricane Gustav toward Louisiana and Texas.
That would be a threat to New Orleans, the city swamped by Katrina three years ago, and the Gulf energy rigs, which account for a quarter of US oil and 15 per cent of natural gas output.
The deeper Ike goes into Cuba, the weaker it will be once it re-emerges over the Gulf of Mexico. But over water it was expected to rapidly regain its former intensity.
"In five days there will be a large hurricane in the central Gulf of Mexico," the hurricane centre said.
In Havana, residents lined up at gas stations and searched stores for candles, crackers and canned goods after a forecaster warned on state television that "almost the entire country is in the danger zone."
"It looks like this year we will have no respite," Eduardo Gonzalez said from eastern Santiago de Cuba," and if it continues like this we will have to live out the hurricane season in the shelters."
Reuters