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. "A lot of people have lost their houses, and we will have to see what we can do to accommodate them."

In South Caicos, a fishing-dependent island of 1,500 people, most homes were damaged, the airport was under water, power will be out for weeks, and every single boat was swept away despite being towed ashore for safety, Minister of Natural Resorces Piper Hanchell said.

Tourism chairman Wayne Garland was text-messaging with two people in Grand Turk during the height of the storm. "They were literally in their bathroom because their roofs were gone," he said. "Eventually they were rescued."

In Providenciales, there was flooding, roof damage and downed power lines but no injuries, he said.

NASA GOES satellite image shows Hurricane Ike. Boarding up windows and battening down everything else, residents of south Florida turned a wary eye to deadly Hurricane Ike Sunday as it tore into the Caribbean. [Agencies]

"Fortunately, we were able to evacuate most of the people in low-lying areas to shelters, so thankfully I don't expect to have any injuries. We'll keep our fingers crossed that that's the case," Garland said as he left to assess the damage.

Twenty-one of the Haitian victims, still unclaimed, were stacked in a mud-caked pile in a funeral home in the coastal Haitian town of Cabaret – including two pregnant women, one with a dead girl still in her arms. More than a dozen children were in the pile. The rest of the known deaths were all in the Cabaret area, civil protection director Marie-Alta Jean Baptiste said.

Many more Haitian lives were threatened as Ike's downpours topped flooding from Hanna, Gustav and Fay. Officials said they would have to open an overflowing dam, inundating more homes and possibly causing lasting damage to key farming areas. The latest deaths raised Haiti's death toll to 306 from the storms in recent weeks.