NASSAU, Bahamas - Ike roared across low-lying islands Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane, destroying homes, sweeping away boats and bringing more rain to waterlogged communities in Haiti, where at least 10 more people drowned.

Bearing down on the Bahamas and then Cuba on a path that could directly hit Havana, the "extremely dangerous" hurricane forced hundreds of thousands of people to huddle in shelters or seek higher ground. Cuba evacuated vulnerable communities, and with a strike on the Florida Keys possible by Tuesday, residents there fled up a narrow highway.

It was too early to know of deaths on other islands where Ike's most powerful winds were still blowing.

The center of the hurricane 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.

At 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), Ike's eye was just west of Great Inagua Island in the southeastern Bahamas, with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph (215 kph). The hurricane was about 90 miles (155 km) from Guantanamo, Cuba, moving west at 13 mph (21 kph).

"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 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).

The British territory's Premier Michael Misick said more than 80 percent of the homes were damaged on two islands 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.