Ike blasts Turks and Caicos, floods Haiti again

Associated Press
Published: Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008 12:53 p.m. MDT
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NASSAU, Bahamas — Ike ripped off roofs, swept away boats and collapsed a bridge on the last road into a flooded Haitian city on Sunday as it roared over the southern Bahamas as a ferocious Category 4 hurricane. The Florida Keys evacuated and Cuba prepared for a direct hit.

Five adults and five children drowned in their homes or were swept to their deaths as Ike's driving rains hit Haiti, raising that country's death toll to 262 from four tropical storms in recent weeks. It was too early to know of deaths on other islands where Ike's most powerful winds were still blowing Sunday morning.

With downpours from Ike topping flooding from Hanna, Gustav and Fay, officials said they had no choice but to open an overflowing dam, inundating more homes and possibly causing lasting damage to Haiti's "rice bowl," a farming area whose revival is key to rescuing the starving country.

Ike's eye hit the Bahamas' Great Inagua island, where screaming winds threatened to peel plywood from the windows of a church sheltering about 50 people, shelter manager Janice McKinney said.

"Oh my God, I can't describe it," McKinney said, adding that the pastor led everyone in prayer while the winds howled.

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Some of the strongest winds hit the low-lying British territory of Turks and Caicos, where Premier Michael Misick said more than 80 percent of the homes were destroyed, fishermen lost boats and people who didn't take refuge in shelters were cowering in closets and under stairwells, "just holding on for life."

"They got hit really, really bad," Misick said. "A lot of people have lost their houses, and we will have to see what we can do to accommodate them."

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), Ike's eye was just east of Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas, with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph (215 kph). It was moving west at 13 mph (21 kph) and was expected to remain a major hurricane as it approaches eastern Cuba, still about 130 miles (205 km) away.

"All we can do is hunker down and pray," reserve police officer Henry Nixon said from a shelter on Great Inagua where about 85 people huddled around a radio.

Great Inagua, closer to Haiti than to the Bahamian capital of Nassau, is the southernmost island in the Bahamas archipelago. It has tens of thousands of pink West Indian flamingos — the world's largest breeding colony — and about 1,000 people. Both populations took shelter — the pink flamingos gathered under mangrove trees ahead of the storm.

"They know what to do. They always find the sheltered areas," Nixon said Sunday as Ike blew shingles off rooftops.

Rain drove in horizontal sheets and wind tore through roofs across the Turks and Caicos, which has little natural protection from an expected storm surge of up to 18 feet (5.5 meters).

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Residents wade through a flooded street after heavy rains in Gonaives, Haiti, Sunday. Hurricane Ike damaged most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas, raked Haiti's flooded cities with rain and threatened the Florida Keys on its way to Cuba as a ferocious Category 4 storm Sunday. (Associated Press)
Associated Press
Residents wade through a flooded street after heavy rains in Gonaives, Haiti, Sunday. Hurricane Ike damaged most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas, raked Haiti's flooded cities with rain and threatened the Florida Keys on its way to Cuba as a ferocious Category 4 storm Sunday.