Texas authorities have ordered coastal evacuations as deadly Hurricane Ike strengthened to a Category Two storm in the Gulf of Mexico and headed toward the southern US coast after ravaging Cuba and the Caribbean.

Hurricane Ike weakened as it churned toward eastern Cuba, dropping to wind speeds of 195 km an hour after sweeping destruction across Haiti, killing at least 39 people.

The latest hurricane to tear through the Atlantic and Caribbean battered Turks and Caicos and the southern Bahamas on Sunday and was hampering relief efforts in flood-devastated Haiti, as Cuba and the United States gird for the storm's wrath.

In what is heralded as the seeds of an Internet-age emergency broadcast system, MySpace has teamed with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spread news on hurricanes through users of the online social network.

Oil prices fell on Wednesday as the US government decided to release crude stocks from its strategic reserve after Hurricane Gustav halted energy production in the Gulf of Mexico.