Hurricane Irene Pounds Islands, Threatens U.S. Coast

Hurricane Irene bore down on the Bahamas Wednesday, churning on a track that could see it slam the U.S. mainland as an even stronger storm later in the week.

Irene packed winds of 175 kilometers per hour, making it a category two storm on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in its 0900 GMT bulletin.

"Strengthening is forecast, and Irene will likely become a major hurricane later (Wednesday)," the NHC said.

The center of Irene was located north of the north-western tip of Haiti over the British overseas territory of Turks and Caicos, some 595 kilometers south-east of Nassau, the NHC said.

The storm, which was moving towards the north-west at 14 kilometers per hour, is forecast to strike the south-eastern U.S. coastline near the Carolinas over the weekend.

Hurricane-force winds extend up to 65 kilometers from Irene's center, and Tropical Storm-force winds extend outward up to 335 kilometers, the NHC said.

Irene is currently forecast to move across the southeastern and central Bahamas on Wednesday, and over the northwestern Bahamas on Thursday. Up to 25 centimeters of rainfall were expected in the southeastern Bahamas.

Fed by warm Atlantic waters, the intensifying storm is expected to whip up ocean surges as high as nearly four meters by the time it reaches the central Bahamas.

Airports and businesses closed Wednesday in the Turks and Caicos, where officials said high winds felled power lines and spread debris in city streets. The State Department issued a travel warning for the islands as well as the Bahamas, urging U.S. citizens already to seek shelter.

In the Dominican Republic, authorities said more than 11,000 people were evacuated to shelters before the storm winds brushed the island's north coast late Monday.

Quake-ravaged Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, was largely spared by the storm, although some mudslides were reported near the northern coast.

U.S. emergency officials warned that the entire U.S. eastern seaboard should be on alert. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Craig Fugate urged residents to realize that it’s "critical that you take this storm seriously."

NHC head Bill Read said a "very large" Irene would likely approach the coast of South Carolina and North Carolina early Saturday.

"But New England could also be in play for a possible impact from Irene," he warned in a media conference call.

Irene is forecast to approach the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast at a time when it is packed with tourists for one of the final weekends of summer.

And forecasters said that by the time Irene reaches U.S. shores, it is likely to be an even more potent storm -- perhaps as high as a category four on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale.

"The stakes are high because it would take just a slight shift in the track to the left to make a dramatic change in the impact of the storm in a hugely populated area," said NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

U.S. forecasters said Irene could travel clear up the U.S. Atlantic coast as far north as Delaware by early Sunday.

Irene ravaged the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico on Monday, with one woman killed after her car was swept away by flooding as she tried to cross a bridge, authorities said.

Some 1,500 Puerto Ricans were displaced by the storm, and nearly a million were left without electricity. Clean-up was underway after Irene downed trees and caused flooding in residential areas.

After the storm hit, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an emergency declaration for the territory.