It was expected to emerge into the Gulf today and regain strength on a path through the heart of the offshore oil fields that produce 25 percent of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.
Oil companies, which had already shut down most Gulf oil and gas production during Gustav, delayed resuming production because of Ike, a move that may lessen oil inventories in future weeks. Shell Oil Co and other energy companies said they were evacuating workers from offshore rigs.
Forecasters said isolated tornadoes might pop up over the Florida Keys and extreme South Florida.
According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, the storm is pointed toward Texas. New Orleans, the city swamped in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion in damage along the U.S. Gulf Coast, appeared an increasingly unlikely target after the hurricane center shifted Ike's expected track southward late yesterday.
Gustav just missed low-lying New Orleans, which is protected by floodwalls and levees.
Ike tore roofs off houses when it hit Britain's Turks and Caicos Islands as a ferocious Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, and floods triggered by its torrential rains were blamed for at least 66 deaths in Haiti, where Tropical Storm Hanna killed 500 last week.
The U.S. Navy ship Kearsarge arrived near Haiti on Monday with eight helicopters and three landing craft to help deliver relief supplies, the U.S. military said.