Hurricane irene hammers the bahamas

Crooked Island saw wind gusts of more than 160km/h, with a school's roof "completely blown off and its windows blow out", Nema reported. Across the Bahamas, Irene toppled trees and brought some flooding. But the storm's course shifted, sparing New Providence island, which is home to some 200,000 people.

For the last three or four major hurricanes that I can recall, we've managed to skirt the eye of the hurricane," Charlton Knowles, who runs a pizza restaurant in Nassau, told AP. "If the only things we are having are downed trees and pickets fences, then it's just a severe storm and that's all."

Irene was heading towards the US, with its projected path well offshore of the east coast of central and northern Florida later on Thursday and early Friday, according to the NHC.