Hurricane Ike

[FormerBondFan]

Killer Ike blasts Bahamas, floods Haiti, hits Cuba

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

CAMAGUEY, Cuba - Hurricane Ike bore down on Cuba after roaring across low-lying islands Sunday, tearing apart houses, wiping out crops and worsening floods in Haiti that have already killed more than 300 people.

With Ike forecast to sweep across Cuba and possibly hit Havana head-on, hundreds of thousands of Cubans evacuated to shelters or higher ground. To the north, residents of the Florida Keys fled up a narrow highway, fearful that the "extremely dangerous" hurricane could hit them Tuesday.

At least 48 people died as Ike's winds and rain swept Haiti Sunday, raising the nation's death toll from four tropical storms in less than a month to 306. A Dominican man was crushed by a falling tree. It was too early to know of deaths on other islands where the most powerful winds were still blowing.

Ike's center hit the Bahamas' Great Inagua island, where the roofs of its two shelters both sprung leaks under the 135 mph (217 kph) winds. As the storm passed, people inside peeked through windows at toppled trees and houses stripped of their roofs.

"It's nasty. I can't remember getting hit like this," reserve police officer Henry Nixon said from inside a shelter holding about 85 people.

Great Inagua has about 1,000 people and about 50,000 West Indian flamingos — the world's largest breeding colony. Both populations sought safety from the winds and driving rain, with the pink flamingos gathering in mangrove thickets. Biologists worried that their unique habitat could be destroyed.

"There's a possibility that the habitat can't really be replaced, and that they can't find an equivalent spot," said Greg Butcher, bird conservation director for the National Audubon Society. "You might have a significant drop in the number of flamingos."

At 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT), Ike had weakened slightly to a Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 120 mph (195 kph). It was about 30 miles off Cuba's northern coast, moving westward at 14 mph (22 kph).

The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted Ike's eye would make landfall early Monday and could hit Havana, the capital of 2 million people with many vulnerable old buildings, by Monday night.

Cuba's government said more than 224,000 people were being evacuated in the central-eastern province of Camaguey alone. Foreign tourists were pulled out from vulnerable beach resorts, workers rushed to protect coffee plants and other crops, and plans were under way to distribute food and cooking oil to disaster areas.

"There's no fear here, but one has to prepared. It could hit us pretty hard," said Ramon Olivera, gassing up his motorcycle in Camaguey, where municipal workers boarded up banks and restaurants.

More than 100 people waited in chaotic bread lines at each of the numerous government bakeries around town as families hoarded supplies before the storm.

On the provincial capital's outskirts, trucks and dented school buses brought about 1,000 evacuees — many of them families with small children — to the sprawling campus of an art school.

Classrooms at the three-story school built on stilts were filled with metal bunk beds. The approaching hurricane brought a stiff breeze through the open windows.

Mirtha Perez, a 65-year-old retiree, said hardly anyone was left in her small town of Salome, located nearby.

"It's a huge evacuation," she said. "We are waiting and asking God to protect us and that nothing happens to us."

The first islands to bear Ike's fury Sunday were the Turks and Caicos, which have little natural protection from storm surges of up to 18 feet (5.5 meters).

The British territory's Premier Michael Misick said more than 80 percent of the homes were damaged on two islands and people who didn't take refuge in shelters were cowering in closets and under stairwells, "just holding on for life."

"They got hit really, really bad," Misick said. "A lot of people have lost their houses, and we will have to see what we can do to accommodate them."

In South Caicos, a fishing-dependent island of 1,500 people, most homes were damaged, the airport was under water, power will be out for weeks, and at least 20 boats were swept away despite being towed ashore for safety, Minister of Natural Resources Piper Hanchell said.

Tourism chairman Wayne Garland was text-messaging with two people in Grand Turk during the height of the storm. "They were literally in their bathroom because their roofs were gone," he said. "Eventually they were rescued."

Twenty-one of the Haitian victims, still unclaimed, were stacked in a mud-caked pile in a funeral home in the coastal Haitian town of Cabaret — including two pregnant women, one with a dead girl still in her arms. More than a dozen children were in the pile. The rest of the known deaths were all in the Cabaret area, civil protection director Marie-Alta Jean Baptiste said.

Many more Haitian lives were threatened as Ike's downpours topped flooding from Hanna, Gustav and Fay. Officials said they would have to open an overflowing dam, inundating more homes and possibly causing lasting damage to key farming areas. The Mirebalais bridge collapsed in the floods, cutting off the last land route into Gonaives, where half the homes were already under water when Ike hit and further complicating relief efforts.

Heavy rains also pelted the Dominican Republic, Haiti's neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, where about 4,000 people were evacuated from northern coastal towns. One man was crushed by a falling tree.

Strong gusts and steady rains fell at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in southeast Cuba, where all ferries were secured and beaches were off limits. The military said cells containing the detainees — about 255 men suspected of links to the Taliban and al-Qaida — are hurricane-proof. But the base was spared the strongest winds.

Where Ike goes after Cuba was hard to predict, leaving millions from Florida to Mexico worrying where it will strike.

"These storms have a mind of their own," Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said as tourists and then residents evacuated the Keys along a narrow highway.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin prepared for the possibility of more havoc only days after an historic, life-saving evacuation of more than 2 million people from Hurricane Gustav.

"Our citizens are weary and they're tired and they have spent a lot of money evacuating," Nagin worried. "It will be very difficult to move the kind of numbers out of this city that we moved during Gustav."

Off western Mexico, Tropical Storm Lowell was moving northwest parallel to the coast. But the hurricane center predicted it will veer into the Baja California Peninsula next weekend.

[Kristatos]

Poor Cubans. As if they haven't suffered enough with 50 years of Castro.

[Dr. No]

Every hurricane coming to the gulf of mex hits Cuba, but i never see much about it on TV. Here in America if it is raining and flood water is rising and the power goes out, its nation news

[FormerBondFan]

Evacuations begin in Texas ahead of Hurricane Ike

By MONICA RHOR, Associated Press Writer 59 minutes ago

HOUSTON - The frail and elderly were put aboard buses Wednesday and authorities warned 1 million others to flee inland as Hurricane Ike steamed toward a swath of the Texas coast that includes the nation's largest concentration of refineries and chemical plants.

Drawing energy from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the strengthening storm was expected to blow ashore early Saturday somewhere between Corpus Christi and Houston, with some forecasts saying it could become a fearsome Category 4, with winds of at least 131 mph.

Such a storm could cause a storm surge of 18 feet in Matagorda Bay and four to eight feet in Galveston Bay, emergency officials warned. The surge in Galveston Bay could push floodwaters into Houston, damaging areas that include the nation's biggest refinery and NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Four counties south and east of Houston announced mandatory or voluntary evacuations, and authorities began moving weak and chronically ill patients by bus to San Antonio, about 190 miles from Houston. No immediate evacuations were ordered in Harris County, which includes Houston.

Just across the state line where Louisianans were still cleaning up from Hurricane Gustav, Cameron Parish residents were told to evacuate, as were those in a few other low-lying coastal communities.

In Texas, Johnny Greer, a 54-year-old retired plant operator at Dow Chemical Corp., boarded up his house a mile from the Gulf of Mexico in Brazoria County and planned to hit the road.

"Gas and stuff is high. But you can't look at all that," he said. "I think my life is more valuable than high gas prices."

About 1 million people live in the coastal counties between Corpus Christi and Galveston. An additional 4 million live in the Houston area, to the north.

The oil and gas industry watched the storm closely, fearing damage to the very heart of its operations.

Texas is home to 26 refineries that account for one-fourth of U.S. refining capacity, and most are clustered along the Gulf Coast in such places as Houston, Port Arthur and Corpus Christi. Exxon Mobil Corp.'s plant in Baytown, outside Houston, is the nation's largest refinery. Dow Chemical has a huge operation just north of Corpus Christi.

Refineries are built to withstand high winds, but flooding can disrupt operations and — as happened in Louisiana after Gustav — power outages can shut down equipment for days or weeks. An extended shutdown could lead to higher gasoline prices.

Meanwhile, the storm's approach also forced University of Texas officials to postpone the school's home football game against Arkansas until Sept. 27.

As always, some hardened old-timers decided to ride it out. Fourth-generation fisherman James Driggers, 47, planned to spend the storm aboard his 80-foot boat docked in Freeport.

"We like to stay close to our paycheck," he said.

At 11 p.m. EDT, Ike was a Category 2 storm with winds near 100 mph. It was about 676 miles east of Brownsville, Texas, and was moving northwest at 7 mph, after ravaging homes in Cuba and killing at least 81 people in the Caribbean.

No matter where Ike hits, its effects are likely to be felt for hundreds of miles, said Mark Sloan, emergency management coordinator for Harris County, which includes Houston.

"It's a very large storm," Sloan said. "The bands will be over 200 miles out from the center of storm, so we have to be aware of its size as it grows over the next 24 to 48 hours and what impacts it will have on Friday, Saturday and Sunday."

Isaias Campos, 27, boarded up the church he attends in Freeport. He said he was grateful the church planned to evacuate much of the congregation to Houston by bus.

"If it wasn't for the church, it would be difficult for many of our members to leave," Campos said.

[FormerBondFan]

Ike strands freighter in Gulf; Houston braces

By MICHAEL GRACZYK, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

HOUSTON - A sprawling and strengthening Hurricane Ike steamed through the Gulf of Mexico on Friday on a track toward the nation's fourth-largest city, where authorities told residents to brace rather than flee.

The Coast Guard scrambled to respond to a pre-dawn distress call about a 584-foot bulk freighter with 22 people aboard that broke down in the path of the storm about 90 miles southeast of Galveston. The Category 2 storm with its 105-mph winds could cause 50-foot waves and made rescue by ship impossible, Petty Officer Patrick Kelley said.

"They're so far offshore, you're looking at only helicopter responses. Then you're dealing with winds," Kelley said, adding that the Coast Guard was weighing its response options.

Kelley did not provide the name of the ship, which was hauling petroleum coke, or details on where it was headed.

Ike's eye was forecast to strike somewhere near Galveston late Friday, but the massive system was already buffeting Texas and Louisiana.

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.

Evacuation orders also were in effect for low-lying sections of the Houston area. Authorities urged homeowners to board up windows, clear the decks of furniture and stock up on drinking water and nonperishable food.

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.

"It will be, in candor, something that people will be scared of," Houston Mayor Bill White warned. "A number of people in this community have not experienced the magnitude of these winds."

The decision is a stark contrast to how emergency management officials responded to Hurricane Rita in 2005. As the storm closed in three years ago, the region implemented its plan: Evacuate the 2 million people in the coastal communities first, past the metropolis of Houston; once they were out of harm's way, Houston would follow in an orderly fashion.

But 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. It was a decision that proved tragic: 110 people died during the effort, making the evacuation more deadly than the eventual Category 4 storm, which killed nine.

With the lessons of that disaster, public officials were left with a vexing choice this time. Because Ike's path wasn't clear until just about 48 hours before the storm, officials didn't have a lot of time to make evacuation calls.

"Almost all of them are in a pretty tough spot," said Michael Lindell, a Texas A&M University urban planner and emergency management expert. "The problem is elected officials were not elected to be hurricane experts.

"It's staring into the barrel of a gun. It's a very challenging problem for them and there isn't any easy answer."

Ike was forecast to make landfall early Saturday southwest of Galveston, a barrier island and beach town about 50 miles southeast of downtown Houston and scene of the nation's deadliest hurricane, the great storm of 1900 that left at least 6,000 dead.

Though Houston didn't evacuate, low-lying communities predicted to be the bulls-eye of the storm did. People on the island were ordered evacuated Thursday, joining residents of at least nine zip codes in flood-prone areas of Harris County, in which Houston is located, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline.

"I don't have a crystal ball, but if I did, I think it would tell me a sad story," said Randy Smith, the police chief and a waterfront property owner on Surfside Beach, just down the coast from Galveston and a possible landfall target.

"And that story would be that we're faced with devastation of a catastrophic range. I think we're going to see a storm like most of us haven't seen."

Most metropolitan residents appeared to be heeding orders and staying put. Edgar Ortiz, a 55-year-old maintenance worker from east Houston, said leaders were providing wise advice, considering what happened during Rita, but said people were inclined to make up their own minds.

"I guess people tend to want to stay where they're at," he said as he shopped for bottled water, toilet paper and canned goods. "A lot of people don't want to leave. I don't want to leave. You may be taking a risk, but that's just how it is."

Maria Belmonte, 42, of Channelview, said she was stuck in traffic for 18 hours as she evacuated for Rita. This time, she was comfortable with the recommendation to stay put — but she said she would reconsider if the forecast worsened Friday.

"We have small kids, and we need to think about their safety," said Belmonte, a records clerk at an elementary school.

Ike would be the first major hurricane to hit a U.S. metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago. For Houston, 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.

Ike is so big, it could inflict a punishing blow even in those areas that do not get a direct hit. Forecasters warned because of Ike's size and the shallow Texas coastal waters, it could produce a surge, or wall of water, 20 feet high, and waves of perhaps 50 feet. It could also dump 10 inches or more of rain.

At 8 a.m. EDT Friday, the storm was centered about 230 miles southeast of Galveston, moving to the west-northwest near 13 mph. Ike was a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph.

Hurricane warnings were in effect over a 400-mile stretch of coastline from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, La., and many residents who fled Hurricane Gustav two weeks ago only to be spared in East Texas were packing up again Thursday.

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.

The first rain and wind was set to arrive later Friday. Residents were scurrying to get ready, and hardware stores put limits on the number of gas containers that could be sold. Batteries, drinking water and other storm supplies were running low, and grocery stores were getting set to close. Houston was slowly shutting down, and people beginning to head inside. The only thing to do was wait and see what Ike had in store.

"It's a big storm," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. "I cannot overemphasize the danger that is facing us. It's going to do some substantial damage. It's going to knock out power. It's going to cause massive flooding."