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Devastating Ike roars ashore in Texas

AP, Galveston
Massive Hurricane Ike ravaged southeast Texas early Saturday, battering the coast with driving rain and ferocious wind gusts as residents who decided too late they should have heeded orders to evacuate made futile calls for rescue.
It remained unclear before daybreak how many people may have perished as the worst of Ike was passing over the Houston-Galveston area. But even before the storm had passed and daylight had arrived, damage was already considered extensive. Thousands of homes and government buildings had flooded, roads were washed out, 2.9 million people lost power and several fires burned unabated as crews could not reach them. But the biggest fear was that tens of thousands of people had defied orders to flee and would need to be rescued from submerged homes and neighbour hood. ,
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 Gov. Rick Perry.
Several fires were burning untended across Houston and 911 operators received about 1,250 calls in 24 hours, said Frank Michel, spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White.
Streets around the city's theatre district became rushing streams and shards of glass fell from the sparkling skyscrapers that define the skyline of America's fourth-largest city. Winds were estimated to be 20-30 mph faster at the top of the steel and glass towers than at ground level.
The stubborn storm remained a Category 2 hurricane with winds topping 100 mph, but started moving away from Houston on Saturday morning, U w^s abpuj 1> miles east-northeast of Houston Intercontinental Airpon at 7 a.m.
EDT and was expected to turn toward /Arkansas later in the day.
The eye of the storm powered ashore at 3:10 am EDT at Galveston with 110 mph winds, just shy of a Category 3 storm. Because Ike was so huge nearly as big as Texas itself hurricane winds pounded the coast for hours before landfall and would continue through much of the morning, with the worst winds and rain after the centre came ashore, forecasters said.
"For us, it was a 10," Galveston Fire Chief Mike Varela said when asked to compare Ike to earlier hurricanes like 2005's Rita. Varela said firefighters responded to about 60 rescue calls before suspending operations around 8 pm Friday.
More than 1.3 million customers or 2.9 million people had lost power, and suppliers warned it could be weeks before all the service was restored. The only parts of Hou^n wi^ pvw^t we[e downtown and the massive medicalcentre section.