Irene pounds Bahamas, N. Carolina on hurricane watch

* Reports of homes washed away on one south Bahamas island

* US East Coast on alert at approach of powerful hurricane

* U.S. Navy ships ordered to leave port to ride out storm

* Warning of risk to New England, Long Island from Sunday

By Neil Hartnell

NASSAU, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Hurricane Irene washed away
homes in the Bahamas on Thursday as its battering winds and
rain headed toward the U.S. eastern seaboard including densely
populated New York and New England.

U.S. emergency officials have urged residents from the
Carolinas north to New England to watch for Irene, now a major
Category 3 storm, which is forecast to rake up the coast
starting Saturday.

The northern part of the North Carolina coast went on a
hurricane watch in anticipation of Irene's forecast landfall on
Saturday evening in the state's eastern Outer Banks barrier
islands, which are popular with vacationers in the summer.

The U.S. Navy said ships of the Second Fleet based in
Hampton Roads, Virginia, were under orders to put out to sea as
a precaution to ride out the upcoming storm. Officers said
large ships can better weather big storms at sea than in port.

North Carolina authorities have already started evacuations
from exposed barrier islands, while along the East Coast
residents rushed to stock up on food and water supplies,
boarded up windows and secured roofs, vehicles and boats.

Irene, which has already caused the deaths this week of at
least one person in Puerto Rico and two in the Dominican
Republic, with others reported missing, was lashing the Bahamas
capital Nassau with heavy rains and gusting winds on Thursday.

On Wednesday, it tore through sparsely populated low-lying
southeastern islands in the Atlantic archipelago.

The Bahamas newspaper The Tribune reported on its website
that on Acklins Island "homes have been completely washed away
or have lost entire roofs, power lines have been downed and
trees are blocking roads."

Many residents sought safety in shelters. No report on
casualties was immediately available.

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Reuters Hurricane Tracker r.reuters.com/san78n

National Hurricane Center www.nhc.noaa.gov

Skeetobite Weather www.skeetobiteweather.com

Weather Underground www.wunderground.com/tropical

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At 8 a.m. (noon GMT), Irene was packing winds of 115 miles
per hour (185 km per hour) and was located about 65 miles (105
km) east northeast of Nassau.

Many tourists in the Bahamas had already fled the storm and
major cruise lines canceled stops there.

The first hurricane of the storm-filled 2011 Atlantic
season was expected to gain strength after it leaves the
Bahamas on Thursday and race across open waters to clip North
Carolina's jutting Outer Banks region on Saturday.

After that, forecasters see it hugging the U.S. eastern
seaboard, swirling rains and winds across several hundred miles
(km) as it churns northward toward New England.

The Miami-based NHC said it would move over the
northwestern Bahamas on Thursday and pass well offshore of the
east coast of central and north Florida later on Thursday and
early on Friday.

U.S. National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read warned on
Wednesday that Irene could become a "big threat for New England
and perhaps Long Island" from Sunday onward
.

Read said North Carolina could get tropical storm-force
winds as early as Saturday morning.

If Irene makes a direct landfall in the continental United
States, it will be the first hurricane to hit there since Ike
pounded Texas in 2008. But forecasts showed it posing no threat
to U.S. oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered the state's Office
of Emergency Management to prepare for possible impact from
Irene. Insurers kept a nervous watch in case Irene threatened
wealthy enclaves such as the Hamptons, an eastern Long Island
playground for New York's rich. [ID:nN1E77N0DI]

Forecasters warned that even if the center of the hurricane
stays offshore as it tracks up the mid-Atlantic coast, its
wide, swirling bands could lash cities including Washington and
New York with winds and rain, knock out power, trigger coastal
storm surges and cause flooding.
(Additional reporting by Tom Brown, Jane Sutton and Manuel
Rueda in Miami, Matthew Ward in Chesapeake, Virginia; Joan
Gralla in New York; Ned Barnett in Raleigh, N.C.; Writing by
Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Jackie Frank)