The Wrath of Hurricane Ike

Once a ferocious hurricane with wind gusts at 135 mph, Ike has weakened a bit as it travels over land. It is now a Category 2 storm with maximum winds of 100 mph, forecasters said.

HAVANA (MCT) - As Hurricane Ike continued on its destructive journey Monday morning, ripping through Cuba, the evacuation order in the Florida Keys expired. As of noon Monday, residents of the Keys who have not already evacuated are urged to stay put.

Even though Ike is expected to pass well south of the Keys, the area will still experience inclement weather.Authorities in the Keys are asking those who have already left the island chain not to return until after the storm passes, which will likely be Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Cuba is continuing to feel Ike's fury.Winds, a massive storm surge and heavy rain have destroyed hundreds of homes and toppled trees in the island nation.As of the 11 a.m. EDT advisory from the National Hurricane Center, the center of the storm was 45 miles west-southwest of Camaguey.

Once a ferocious hurricane with wind gusts at 135 mph, Ike has weakened a bit as it travels over land. It is now a Category 2 storm with maximum winds of 100 mph, forecasters said.

After wreaking havoc in the Turks and Caicos and killing at least 61 people in Haiti early Sunday, the storm will continue to lash Cuba on Monday and Tuesday.

There, it could possible cause up to 20 inches of rain in some areas, flash floods and mudslides. Ike could also cause a storm surge of up to 12 feet, the National Hurricane Center advised.

The storm is on a westward path toward Havana, and is currently about 290 miles west-southwest of the city.

According to reports aired on Cuban radio, the Toa River, the biggest in Cuba, and the Yateras River _ both in the Guantanamo province _ are overflowing and creating damage. Seven people were also injured there, though none seriously.

In that same region, more than 1,000 homes have been damaged, 300 of them destroyed.Landslides have blocked access to the cities of Maisi and Moa.

Juan Carlos Figueira, who owns a bed and breakfast in Holguin, where the storm made landfall Sunday night at 9:45 p.m., rode the storm out in his house with several tourists staying at $25 a night.

But nobody slept much.''The winds were terrible. You could hear many trees falling and lightposts breaking outside,'' he said.``There are roofs in people's yards and nobody knows who they belong to.''

Figueira said the damage was unbelievable, with trees down on the ground, phone lines knocked down and homes destroyed.

Once Ike leaves Cuba, it is expected to make its way into the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 1 storm.It will likely intensify into a major hurricane as it heads toward the Gulf Coast, possibly making landfall in Texas, Louisiana or Florida's panhandle.

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Ike has already proved itself to be a monster.

In Haiti, flood water swept away sleeping children in the town of Cabaret. Their lifeless bodies were collected and placed on a concrete slab in front of a local business.

Mothers wailed at the horror, fathers screamed to the gods.
Turks and Caicos also experienced Ike's wrath.At least 80 percent of the homes in Grand Turk and South Caicos were damaged, some of them destroyed.

© 2008, The Miami Herald.