Powerful Hurricane Ike weakened slightly as it charged across the Atlantic toward the Bahamas and the United States today while Tropical Storm Hanna's death toll from floods in Haiti grew to 136.
Campgrounds were closed and some evacuations began on North Carolina's Outer Banks as Hanna churned east of the far-flung Bahamian chain of 700 islands on a path toward the southeastern US states on tomorrow.
Ike posed no immediate threat to land and it was too early to say if it would threaten Caribbean islands, the US East Coast or the US oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Josephine churned in Ike's wake across the Atlantic.
The trio of Atlantic storms followed Hurricane Gustav's rampage through the aribbean to the Louisiana coast, where it slammed ashore on Monday west of New Orleans, largely sparing the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
The flurry was a clear signal this six-month hurricane season was on track to be a ferociously busy one, though not like record-busting 2005 when 28 tropical storms, including Katrina, rolled across the Atlantic and Caribbean.
In the Haitian port city of Gonaives, residents roamed the streets hunting for food as floodwaters that had trapped hundreds on rooftops receded, leaving behind deep piles of mud and 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 136 people had died in floods and mudslides triggered by Hanna, many of them in the Gonaives area, Haiti's civil protection office said.
Hanna was the third deadly storm to strike Haiti in less than a month. Gustav previously killed at least 75 people and Tropical Storm Fay killed more than 50.
President Rene Preval called the situation "catastrophic," comparing it to floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne in September 2004 that killed more than 3,000 people around Gonaives.
A US Coast Guard helicopter rescued eight crewmen from a freighter that ran aground near the Turks and Caicos islands south of the Bahamas three days ago. Hanna prevented them from attempting to get the crew off the ship earlier.
Hanna weakened slightly today. Its top sustained winds were at 105 kph and the US National Hurricane Center expected it to remain below the hurricane threshold of 120 kph through landfall around the South Carolina-North Carolina border tomorrow morning.
North Carolina Governor Mike Easley declared a state of emergency and his South Carolina counterpart, Mark Sanford, advised people in two northern coastal counties to evacuate. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine also declared a state of emergency.