Ike Sends 50-foot Waves Slamming Against Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Hurricane Ike tore across Cuba with 100 mph winds Monday, whipping waters on the northern central coast into 50-foot waves that crashed over some buildings and forcing the evacuation of some 900,000 people on the island nation.

"This could be the worst hurricane that this part of Cuba has seen in many, many years," CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano said.

Ike was a Category 2 hurricane with steady 100 mph (155 km/h) winds and higher gusts, according to 8 a.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

The storm had weakened slightly after first reaching Cuba late Sunday night as a Category 3 hurricane.

No deaths or injuries have been reported so far.

Waves as high as 50 feet crashed ashore in historic Baracoa, Cuba, southeast of where Ike made its Cuba landfall Sunday night. At least 1,000 homes were damaged or destroyed as the sea surge moved into the city, witnesses said.

Video showed towering waves crash against five-story high buildings through a gray mist of rain and sea spray. Residents in the region slogged through water up to their knees, with boxes, branches and other debris floating alongside them in the city streets.

Baracoa is one of the first places where Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba in 1492, and was the original Spanish settlement in Cuba.

At 8 a.m., Ike's center was 20 miles (35 km) south of Camaguey, Cuba, moving to the west at 14 mph (22 km/h), the hurricane center said.

That movement will take it "over or very near central Cuba" throughout the day Monday, the NHC advisory said.

Residents on the western half of the island scrambled to get necessities before the worst of the storm hit, CNN's Morgan Neill reported from Havana -- where the winds were picking up and the water was becoming choppy Monday morning, sending growing waves over the city's historic seawall.

People in the capital were worried that Ike's heavy rain would bring flooding and landslides to that area, and damage some of its more fragile infrastructure.

"Some of the old, colonial construction in Havana loses chunks of concrete even in heavy rains," Neill reported.

As many as 900,000 residents evacuated to higher ground inland before the storm, sheltering with friends or relatives. Some of those people were made homeless when Hurricane Gustav battered the western half of the island last week.

Many evacuees went to schools or government buildings with stronger roofs. The Cuban government cut power to the eastern half of the island before Ike arrived and canceled all domestic flights.

At Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Cuba's southeastern tip, the rain was dying down at mid-morning Monday, said Petty Officer Robert Lamb.

"I think we fared pretty well down here," he told CNN by telephone. Some limbs were down and a few street signs had gotten knocked over, Lamb said, and assessment teams were combing the base to check for any further damage.

"We were prepared for worse than we received," he said.

In Varadero, a hugely popular tourist resort on the country's northern central coast, 9,000 tourists were evacuated ahead of Ike's arrival.

Officials predicted the storm -- coming on the heels of Gustav -- could have a devastating impact on the small country's economy.

Nickel mines and sugar plantations, as well as the tourist trade, will suffer from the heavy rain and wind.

Hurricane warnings are in effect for the Cuban provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Las Tunas and Granma, Camaguey, Ciego de Avila, Villa Clara, Sancti Spiritus, Cienfuegos and Matanzas.

A hurricane watch and tropical storm warning are in effect for the western Cuban provinces of La Habana, Ciudad de Habana, Pinar del Rio and the Isle of Youth.

At least 73 people in Haiti were killed by rains and flooding from the outer bands of Hurricane Ike. Heavy rains from other recent hurricanes have caused flooding and landslides, and 167 deaths were reported after Hurricane Gustav and Tropical Storm Hannah.

Furious wind, rain and the sea surge from Hurricane Ike destroyed or damaged at least 90 percent of the homes this weekend on Grand Turk, the capital island in the Turks and Caicos Islands, according to journalist Audley Astwood.

"It pretty much looks like an episode of 'The Twilight Zone,'" Astwood said. "It's like the end of the world."

Monday, a tropical storm watch was in effect for Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Florida Keys from Ocean Reef southward to the Dry Tortugas, meaning that tropical storm conditions are expected in that area in the next 24 hours.

Forecasters said it is still too soon to know where along the U.S. Gulf Coast Ike will ultimately go, but "the environment in the Gulf is expected to be very conducive to re-strengthening."

The latest hurricane center track map indicated the greatest chances for a U.S. landfall for Ike would be as a Category 3 storm near the Texas-Louisianaborder on Saturday.

Authorities evacuated the Florida Keys over the weekend in case Ike's path veered northward, and President George W. Bush issued an emergency declaration to allow federal agencies to mobilize in Florida.

Officials in Louisiana also eyed Ike nervously.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal pre-emptively issued a state of emergency for his state, which is still recovering from Hurricane Gustav. More than 370,000 people remain without power in the state, nearly a week after Gustav made landfall, he said.

"Like I told you before Gustav, let's hope it's all a false alarm," he said. "There continues to be much uncertainty about (Ike's) predicted track."

There is significant uncertainty about where Ike might go and how strong it will be by the end of the week, but the hurricane center's long-range track map places it just off the Louisiana coast as a Category 3 hurricane.

The "cone of uncertainty" -- the map's depiction of where the eye could reach -- encompasses the entire Texas coast eastward to the Florida Panhandle.

The tropical storm warning for the Florida Keys means that tropical storm force winds are expected to reach the area by Tuesday.

As Ike approached, the possibility that it could strike the Florida Keys prompted officials to order a mandatory evacuation of all residents and visitors from the string of islands over the weekend.

Some 15,000 tourists left the Keys in the past two days, reported CNN's Susan Candiotti. Monroe County Mayor Mario Di Gennaro said the evacuation will take a toll

regardless of the hurricane's path.

"Believe you me, I'm not happy about this," he said. "I'm not happy about losing business. I'm not happy about our businesspeople losing money. The way our economy is right now -- we don't want this any more than you. Every hurricane is one hurricane too much."

Tropical Storm Fay, which hit that region last month, caused $10 million in lost revenues, Candiotti said.