Ike ripped off roofs, sank boats and blocked the road for aid to reach 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.

Powerful Hurricane Ike rolled down an uncertain path Sunday that may lead to the U.S. Gulf Coast late this week, forcing emergency officials to pay attention and leaving millions of people from Florida to Mexico to wonder where it will eventually strike.

As the senior forecaster there, Lixion Avila frequently consults with colleagues in Cuba and he has found himself drawing the lines that drive a Category 4 monster completely through his homeland ? and directly at his aged mother in Havana.

Ike is still far out in the Atlantic, but it's getting a close look from those who weathered 1992's Andrew, the devastating Category 5 storm against which all other Florida hurricanes are measured.

Hundreds of people fled Gonaives, Haiti, on Saturday for higher ground as powerful Hurricane Ike threatened to unleash heavy rain and compound a disaster caused by a previous storm.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said Friday that he is unlikely to delay plans for an important test in North Carolina that could disrupt television service for some viewers in the path of Tropical Storm Hanna.