Devastating Hurricane Ike swamps Texas and Louisiana

Howling ashore with 110 mph winds, Hurricane Ike ravaged the Texas coast today, flooding thousands of homes and businesses, shattering windows in Houston’s skyscrapers and knocking out power to millions of people.

With roads still unpassable, it was unclear how many may have perished, and authorities mobilised for a huge search-and-rescue operation to reach the more than 100,000 people who ignored warnings that attempting to ride the storm out could bring “certain death”. Crews were waiting for the storm to pass to make rescues.

“The unfortunate truth is we’re going to have to go in ... and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely. We’ll probably do the largest search-and-rescue operation that’s ever been conducted in the state of Texas,” said Andrew Barlow, spokesman for Governor Rick Perry.

The storm’s first confirmed fatality was a woman in a neighbourhood north of Houston who was killed when a tree fell on her home as she slept, authorities said.

With the winds still blowing and rain still falling in sheets, authorities in some places could not venture outside to get a full look at the damage, but they were encouraged that the storm surge topped out at only 13.5 feet – far lower than the catastrophic 20 to 25-foot wall of water forecasters had feared.

Ike passed over Houston before dawn, blowing out windows in Texas’ tallest building, the 75-story Chase Tower. Behind splintered shards, desks were exposed to the pounding morning rains, metal blinds hung in a twisted heap from some windows, and smoky black glass covered the streets below.

Documents, marked “highly confidential,” were strewn across nearly empty streets.

“It sounded like ice or something hitting the window but really it was glass,” said Santa Montelongo, 53, who took refuge inside her office at a nearby building. “We could see it fly by. It got really spooky.”

Yellow police tape cordoned off the street leading to Chase Tower. Black glass enshrouded red brick sidewalks. Trees were blown from their roots on to the streets. A street light lay near one kerb, a smashed computer and pink insulation near another.

Shortly before noon, Houston police cars prowled the city centre, ordering citizens off the streets over bullhorns: “Please clear the area! Go home!” Chunks of glass were still plunging from Chase Tower, threatening to injure nearby gawkers.

The storm, nearly as big as Texas itself, blasted a 500-mile stretch of coastline in Louisiana and Texas. It breached levees, flooded roads and led more than one million people to evacuate and seek shelter inland.

“Every storm’s unique, but this one certainly will be remembered for its size,” said Benton McGee, supervisory hydrologist at the US Geological Survey’s storm surge centre in Ruston, Louisiana.

Of greatest concern were the more than 100,000 people in coastal counties who ignored mandatory evacuation orders, including thousands of residents of Galveston, the low-lying barrier island where Ike crashed ashore early this morning.

South of Galveston, authorities said 67-year-old Ray Wilkinson was the only resident who did not evacuate from Surfside Beach, population 800. He was drunk and waving when authorities reached him on Saturday morning.

“He kinda drank his way through the night,” Mayor Larry Davison said.

In Louisiana, Ike’s storm surge inundated thousands of homes and businesses. In Plaquemines Parish, near New Orleans, a sheriff’s spokesman said levees were overtopped and floodwaters were higher than from either hurricane Katrina or Rita three years ago.

“The storm surge we’re experiencing, on both sides of the Mississippi River, is higher than anything we’ve seen before,” Marie said.

Officials in Houston and along the coast reported receiving thousands of distress calls overnight but they were unable to respond because of the dangerous hurricane conditions. Emergency responders were fanning out today morning from the Reliant Centre in Houston to take stock of the damage and rescue any holdouts who needed help.

“This is a democracy,” said Mark Miner, a spokesman for Perry. “Local officials who can order evacuations put out very strong messages. Gov. Perry put out a very strong warning. But you can’t force people to leave their homes. They made a decision to ride out the storm. Our prayers are with them.”

Ike landed near the nation’s biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. Fears of shortages pushed wholesale petrol prices up and at least eight refineries were shut down. But it was too soon to know how they fared.

Fires burned untended across Galveston and Houston. Brennan’s, a landmark downtown Houston restaurant, was destroyed by flames when firefighters were thwarted by high winds. Fire officials said a restaurant worker and his young daughter were taken to a hospital in critical condition with burns over 70% of their bodies.

As Ike moved north, the storm dropped to a Category 1 hurricane with winds of around 80 mph.

Ike later weakened to a tropical storm over eastern Texas with winds near 60mph (96kph), forecasters in Miami said tonight.