Friday, September 12, 2008

Ike becoming an ugly curveball towards Houston, Dallas

The terrifying reality of this storm is it is like a monster that has trapped itself in a shallow puddle. Wherever it beaches there it going to be a whole lot of hurting.

Behind Ike the remnants of Josephine are reforming.
clipped from afp.google.com

HOUSTON, Texas (AFP) — Roads and bridges leading away from the Texas coast were jammed Thursday as hundreds of thousands of residents of Houston and surrounding areas began a mass evacuation Thursday, with deadly Hurricane Ike bearing down on the Texas metropolis.

Ike, which has left more than 100 dead across the Caribbean, could slam into the Texas coast immediately south of the port of Galveston late Friday or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center forecast.

Houston, just inland from Galveston and on track to feel some of Ike's wrath, is home to 2.2 million people, and its metropolitan area is the country's sixth largest, topping 5.6 million.

"We didn't expect it to be coming this close to us," said Joe Steinebaker, a county court spokesman.

He said Ike could create a 15-foot (five meter) storm surge in Galveston Bay, which could prove "calamitous" to some communities along the bay.

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