"The U.S. put its eastern seaboard on alert for Hurricane Irene on Tuesday as the powerful storm barreled up from the Caribbean on a path that could hit the U.S. coast on the weekend."
"Even as the first hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic season pounded the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeast Bahamas with battering winds and rain and dangerous storm surge, coastal residents in Florida and the Carolinas were preparing for Irene's approach.
'I pray God's blessing on us all,' Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said as he urged residents of his Atlantic archipelago nation southeast of Florida to take shelter.
Irene is the ninth named storm of the busy June-through-November season and looks set to be the first hurricane to hit the United States since Ike pounded the Texas coast in 2008."
Neil Hartnell reports for Reuters August 24, 2011.
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