Ike pounds Texas coast

GALVESTON, Texas — A monster-size Hurricane Ike menaced the darkened Texas coast early today, ensuring a sleepless night for thousands who huddled and waited to find out if a gamble to face the storm head-on could cost them their lives.

Before the eye even crossed land, the first bands were punishing. Wind-whipped waves surged over a 17-foot sea wall in Galveston and filled streets with waist-high water. Homes were flooding, utilities said more than 4.5 million people were without power and there was fear hurricane-force winds could shatter the windows of the sparkling skyscrapers that define the skyline of America's fourth-largest city.

"We don't know what we are going to find. We hope we will find the people who are left here alive and well," Galveston Mayor Lynda Ann Thomas said. "We are keeping our fingers crossed all the people who stayed on Galveston Island managed to survive this."

At 600 miles across, the storm was nearly as big as Texas itself, and threatened to give the state its worst pounding in a generation.

Officials were growing increasingly worried about the stalwarts, and many communities imposed curfews to discourage looters. Authorities in three counties said roughly 90,000 stayed behind, despite a warning from forecasters that many of those in one- or two-story homes on the coast faced "certain death."

"We don't know how bad it will be, but as soon as we do, we will be asking for help," Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said.

At dark Friday, the Coast Guard suspended a search for a 19-year-old man who was lost in 6- to 8-foot waves off North Padre Island, about 10 miles east of Corpus Christi. Michael Moxly was with three other people on the southside of the Packery Channel Jetty when he was swept away.

In communities all along the coast, rescue crews were forced in the face of heavy wind and rain to retreat and leave the stubborn to fend for themselves. Three buildings were destroyed by fire in Galveston because water was too high for firetrucks to navigate.

"I believe in the man up there, God," said William Steally, a 75-year-old retiree who planned to ride out the storm in Galveston without his wife or sister-in-law. "I believe he will take care of me."

A disabled 584-foot freighter with 22 men aboard was left tossed about in the waves because winds were too dangerous for aircraft. Late Friday, the Coast Guard reported the crew was still safe, and a tugboat was set to arrive by noon today.

The number of customers without power was expected to climb quickly throughout the night, according to CenterPoint Energy, the primary electricity provider for the region.

Early today, Ike was centered about 35 miles southeast of Galveston. It was close to a Category 3 storm with winds of 110 mph, and was expected to strengthen by the time the eye hit land. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore somewhere near Galveston early today and pass almost directly over Houston.

Before midnight, the storm surge had started to flood some low-lying areas of Houston, and some of the seven bayous that snake through the city were overflowing.

"With the water at these levels, you can assume that there is water in homes and homes are damaged," said Frank Michel, spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White. "But right now, it's dark, the storm is building and we don't have anyone going up and down the streets yet determining the extent of the damage."

Because of the hurricane's size, the state's shallow coastal waters and its largely unprotected coastline, forecasters said the biggest threat would be flooding and storm surge, with Ike expected to hurl a wall of water two stories high — 20 to 25 feet — at the coast.

Bachir Annane, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division, said Ike's surge could be catastrophic, and like nothing the Texas coast has ever seen.

"Wind doesn't tell the whole story," Annane said. "It's the size that tells the story, and this is a giant."

Brennan's of Houston, one of the city's historic restaurants, was destroyed by fire early this morning. Firefighters were thwarted by high winds and could not save the downtown establishment.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said more than 5.5 million prepackaged meals were being sent to the region, along with more than 230 generators and 5.6 million liters of water. At least 3,500 FEMA officials were stationed in Texas and Louisiana.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked President Bush for a "wide-reaching emergency declaration" in all 88 counties being affected, a move designed to secure emergency funding to help defray storm costs.

Ike is the first major hurricane to hit a U.S. metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago. For Houston, it is the first major hurricane since August 1983, when Alicia came ashore on Galveston Island, killing 21 people and causing $2 billion in damage.

Houston has since then seen a population explosion, so many of the residents now in the storm's path have never experienced the full wrath of a hurricane.

Authorities instructed most of the city's 2 million residents to just hunker down to avoid highway gridlock. Residents prepared for a sleepless night.

If Ike is as bad as feared, the storm could travel up Galveston Bay and send a surge up the Houston Ship Channel and into the port of Houston.

The port is the nation's second-busiest, and is an economically vital complex of docks, pipelines, depots and warehouses that receives automobiles, consumer products, industrial equipment and other cargo from around the world and ships out vast amounts of agricultural products.

The oil and gas industry was also closely watching Ike because it was headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. Wholesale gasoline prices jumped to about $4.85 a gallon for fear of shortages.

Ike also spawned thunderstorms, shut down schools and knocked out power throughout southern Louisiana.

An estimated 1,200 people were in state shelters, and another 220 in medical-needs shelters. Ike also breached levees in southeastern Louisiana near Houma.