Ike floods roads, whips waves along Texas

The storm is so big it could inflict a punishing blow even in those areas that do not get a direct hit.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
hurricane ike 88 (photo credit: )
hurricane ike 88
(photo credit: )
Hurricane Ike, a colossal storm nearly as big as Texas itself, began battering the coast Friday, threatening to obliterate waterfront towns and give the skyscrapers, refineries and docks of the fourth-largest US city their worst pounding in a generation. But even as towering waves started crashing over the 5-meter Galveston seawall and floodwaters rose in low-lying areas, it became clear that many of the 1 million coastal residents who had been ordered to get out refused to so and were taking their chances. Authorities in three counties alone said roughly 90,000 stayed behind, despite a warning from forecasters that many of those in one- or two-story homes faced "certain death." At about 965 kilometers across, the hurricane was a monster, taking up almost the entire northern half of the Gulf of Mexico. As it zeroed in on the coast, it trapped 60 people who had to be rescued from the floodwaters near Galveston by helicopter, breached levees in rural Louisiana, and tossed around a disabled 178-meter cargo ship in the Gulf. As of 5 p.m., Ike was centered about 215 kilometers southeast of Galveston, moving at 19 kph. It was a Category 2 storm, with winds of 105 mph, but was expected to strengthen to a Category 3, or at least 179 kph, by the time it hit land. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore somewhere near Galveston late Friday or early Saturday and pass almost directly over Houston. 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 about 6 to 8 meters high at the coastline. To avoid highway gridlock, authorities instructed most of Houston's 2 million residents to stay put. Still, authorities warned that the storm could travel up Galveston Bay and send a surge up the Houston Ship Channel and into the port of Houston, the second-busiest US port - a 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 petrochemicals and agricultural products. The oil and gas industry was also closely watching Hurricane Ike because it was headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. The storm could also force water up the seven bayous that thread through Houston, swamping neighborhoods so flood-prone that they get inundated during ordinary rainstorms. 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." Ike would be the first major hurricane to hit a US metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. For Houston, it would be the first major hurricane since Alicia in August 1983 came ashore on Galveston Island, killing 21 people and causing $2 billion in damage. In southwestern Louisiana near Houma, Ike breached levees, threatening thousands of homes of fishermen, oil-field workers, farmers and others. Crews struggled to plug four breaches. Before the storm even arrived, rescue crews were being tapped. Because of high winds, the Air Force and Coast Guard aborted plans to send aircraft to the Gulf of Mexico in a daring attempt to rescue 22 crewmen adrift on a stalled freighter in rough seas off Galveston. Coast Guard helicopter crews plucked 60 people from the town of High Island on the Bolivar Peninsula, a 52-kilometer spit just up the coast from Galveston, after rising waters covered the only road. In Galveston, a working-class town of about 57,000, waves crashed over the 18-kilometer seawall built a century ago, after the Great Storm of 1900 killed 6,000 residents. That hurricane remains the deadliest natural disaster in the US. A boat and yacht repair warehouse caught fire and burned to the ground on Galveston Island because the streets were under at least 2 1/2 meters of water - too flooded for firetrucks to reach it, Galveston Fire Chief Michael Varela said. No one was believed hurt. The sight of the storm's fury frightened some people who initially intended to stay. "We started seeing water come up on the streets, then we saw this. We just loaded up everything, got the pets. We're leaving," 33-year-old Tony Munoz said in Galveston. "I've been through storms before, but this is different." While the beach front is dotted with new condominiums and some elegant beach homes on stilts, most people live in older, one-story bungalows. The National Weather Service warned "widespread and devastating" damage was expected. In Surfside Beach, a town of 800, the police chief asked one stubborn couple to write their names and Social Security numbers on their forearms with a black marker in case something bad happened to them. But the couple finally decided to leave and were rescued by police boat. Houston's streets were eerily quiet, emptied of the usual weekday traffic. Skyscrapers were darkened, and sandbags protected the lobby doors to some.