Hurricane Ike whips waves as it moves into Texas

A massive Hurricane Ike sent white waves crashing over a seawall and tossed a disabled 584-foot freighter in high waves as it steamed toward Texas Friday, threatening to devastate coastal towns and batter America's fourth-largest city.

Friday, September 12th 2008, 1:09 pm

By: News 9


By JUAN A. LOZANO

Associated Press Writer

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) -- A massive Hurricane Ike sent white waves crashing over a seawall and tossed a disabled 584-foot freighter in high waves as it steamed toward Texas Friday, threatening to devastate coastal towns and batter America's fourth-largest city.

Ike's eye was forecast to strike somewhere near Galveston late Friday or early Saturday, but the massive system was already buffeting Texas and Louisiana, causing flooding along the Louisiana coast still recovering from Labor Day's Hurricane Gustav.

The National Weather Service warned residents of smaller structures on Galveston they could "face certain death" if they ignored an order to evacuate; most had complied, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline. But in a move designed to avoid highway gridlock as the storm closed in, most of Houston's 2 million residents hunkered down and were ordered not to leave.

White waves as tall as 15 feet were already crashing over Galveston's seawall. It was enough to scare away Tony Munoz and his wife, Jennifer, who went down to the water to take pictures, then decided that riding out the storm wasn't a good idea after all.

"We started seeing water come up on the streets, then we saw this. We just loaded up everything, got the pets, we're leaving," Tony Munoz, 33, said. "I've been through storms before but this is different."

Ike's 105-mph winds and potential 50-foot waves stopped the Coast Guard from attempting a risky helicopter rescue of 22 people aboard a 584-foot freighter that broke down in the path of the storm about 90 miles southeast of Galveston, Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry said. The ship was hauling petroleum coke used to fuel furnaces at steel plants.

But authorities were staying in contact by radio and examining whether there was any way to save the men. "Now we're looking at seeing what we can get out there, possibly in a range to assist them," Petty Officer Tom Atkeson said.

A stubborn few decided to defy orders to leave. Emory Sallie, 44, of Galveston, said he had ridden storms out in the past and didn't think Ike would be any different. He didn't believe the dire warnings -- he was more worried about the wind, not the flooding.

"If the island is going to disappear it has to be a tsunami," he said, as he walked along the block where his home is located, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. "If it ain't your time you ain't going anywhere."

In Surfside Beach, a small coastal town of about 805, water was already knee-deep in the streets and skies were growing increasingly dark. Police were going around in a dump truck trying to get holdouts to evacuate while there was still time. The police chief asked one stubborn couple to write their names and Social Security numbers on their forearms in black magic marker "in case something bad were to happen." They soon changed their minds, and police were wading an aluminum boat through floodwaters to rescue them.

In Houston, about 60 miles inland, officials said residents should not flock to the roadways en masse, creating the same kind of gridlock that cost lives -- and a little political capital -- when Hurricane Rita threatened Houston in 2005. Some evacuation orders were in effect for low-lying sections of the Houston area, but for the most part, people stayed. Large hospitals in the city moved some patients away from windows, but they did not send them away.

Three days before landfall, Rita bloomed into a Category 5 and tracked toward the city. City and Harris County officials told Houstonians to hit the road, even while the population of Galveston Island was still clogging the freeways. The evacuation itself wound up far more dangerous than the storm: 110 people died during the effort, while the eventual Category 4 storm killed nine.

Friday morning, Houstonians streamed in and out of a grocery store near downtown, carts filled with last-minute supplies such as water and Wheat Thins. Ken Wilson, 51, cut short a vacation to California to return home and ready for Ike. He loaded eight gallons of water into his car trunk before heading home to ride out the storm with his wife.

Wilson said it was too late for him to board up his house, though he had stocked up on ice and batteries.

"We'll just tape up to keep things from flying around. I'm apprehensive about how high the winds are going to be, and windows breaking," he said, but still: "What's the philosophy? Run from the water, shelter from the wind? If it's wind: Hunker down."

Business owners Lisa and Tresa Biggerstaff were busy boarding up their shop, Dacapo's Pastry Cafe, located in the city's Heights area.

"We'll just turn it over to God and let whatever happen, happen," Tresa Biggerstaff said as she watched her friend, Preston Witt, cut half-inch thick plywood. "We're not scared at all."

Texans were getting hit from both sides, as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lowell, a Pacific system, dumped nearly 8 inches of rain on Lubbock in 24 hours, flooding homes and roads. Some businesses closed, and Texas Tech University and other schools canceled Friday classes.

Ike would be the first major hurricane to hit a U.S. metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago. For Houston -- a city filled with gleaming skyscrapers, the nation's biggest refinery and NASA's Johnson Space Center -- 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.

Galveston, a barrier island and beach town about 10 feet above sea level and 50 miles southeast of downtown Houston, was the scene of the nation's deadliest hurricane, the great storm of 1900 that left at least 6,000 dead. But that also was before officials had the ability to warn residents that a hurricane was coming, and before the seawall was built to protect the community.

If the storm stays on its projected path, it could head up the Houston ship channel and through Galveston Bay, which Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called a nightmare scenario.

At 11 a.m. EDT Friday, the storm was centered about 195 miles southeast of Galveston, moving to the west-northwest near 12 mph. Hurricane warnings were in effect over a 400-mile stretch of coastline from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, La. Tropical storm warnings extended south almost to the Mexican border and east to the Mississippi-Alabama line, including New Orleans.

The oil and gas industry was closely watching the storm because it was headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. The upper Texas coast accounts for one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity, and many platforms were shut down. Wholesale gasoline prices jumped to around $4.85 a gallon for fear of vast shortages. That was up substantially from about $3.25 on Wednesday and less than $3 on Tuesday.

------

Associated Press writers Kelley Shannon in Austin, Paul Weber and Regina L. Burns in Dallas, John Porretto and Pauline Arrillaga in Houston, Diana Heidgerd in Dallas, and Allen G. Breed and video journalist Rich Matthews and Allen Breed in Surfside Beach contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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