Hurricane Ike could be "catastrophe" for Texas

By Tim Gaynor

GALVESTON, Texas (Reuters) - Massive Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coast on Friday, driving a wall of water into seaside communities and threatening catastrophic damage.

Waters rose rapidly as Ike moved within hours of striking low-lying areas near Houston with a possible 20-foot (6-metre) storm surge in what may be the worst storm to hit Texas in nearly 50 years

"Our nation is facing what is by any means a potentially catastrophic hurricane," said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, warning that Ike's storm surge could present the gravest danger.

"This certainly falls in the category of pretty much a worst case scenario."

The National Weather Service warned that people in coastal areas could "face the possibility of death" from the storm surge. Officials said Ike could flood as many as 100,000 homes and send a storm wave across 100 miles of U.S. coastline.

Ike surprised many with its ferocity, just 11 days after Hurricane Gustav forced 2 million people to flee the Louisiana coast, but largely spared New Orleans.

Some 600,000 people left low lying counties under mandatory evacuation orders, but some who thought they would stick it out made a last-minute exit from Galveston.

"When I woke up, my bed was floating in the house," said David Daubuisson, a handyman who narrowly escaped from his home in Bayou Vista. "I just took what I could and got out."

The city was hit by a hurricane in 1900 that was the deadliest weather disaster in U.S. history, with a death toll of at least 8,000. Ike's waves were expected to top a 17-foot (5-metre) sea wall built in 1904 in the wake of that disaster.

Crude oil markets nervously watched to see if Ike would swamp low-lying coastal refineries in its path that collectively process 20 percent of U.S. fuel supplies.

Although Ike is weaker than 2005's Hurricane Katrina, the last storm to pummel a U.S. urban area and a major disaster, its large scope gives it more water-moving power. Ike's hurricane-force winds extend for 240 miles, compared to Katrina's 210 miles.

Ike was a Category 2 storm with 105 mph (165 kph) winds as it moved on a course to pass directly over Houston -- the fourth-largest city in the United States.

Ike was expected to come ashore overnight, possibly as a dangerous Category 3 storm on the five-step intensity scale with winds of more than 111 mph (178 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.

At 4 p.m. CDT (2100 GMT) on Friday, Ike was about 135 miles

southeast of Galveston, the hurricane center said. It was moving west-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph).