Texans Take Shelter, Feel First Effects of Ike

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Hurricane Ike Continues On an Erratic Path

After tearing through the Caribbean earlier this week, Hurricane Ike is taking direct aim at Galveston and Houston. The National Weather Service warns anyone that stays in low-lying coastal areas "may face certain death" if they refuse to evacuate. Ike is expected to hit with a 20- to 25- storm surge and winds of perhaps 115 miles per hour.

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By that time, downtown Galveston was under four feet of water, with the center of the storm still more than 50 miles offshore.

"We don't know what we're going to find tomorrow," Thomas said.

Downtown Houston is about 50 feet above sea level, so there is no fear of major flooding there. The biggest concern is skyscrapers' glass breaking and falling. On the upper floors of the tallest buildings, Ike's winds will feel even more powerful, experts said.

Late Friday evening, even before the worst of the storm had landed, CenterPoint Energy, the local power company, reported that 415,000 of its customers in the Houston-Galveston area had lost electricity. A company spokesman, Floyd LeBlanc, predicted that half of CenterPoint's 2 million customers would soon be without power.

"We're expecting a lot of damage. We're expecting trees and tree limbs to break down power lines," LeBlanc told a local television station. He said it would likely be two or three weeks before power is fully restored.

Perry asked President Bush for a "wide-reaching emergency declaration" in all 88 counties being affected by the storm, in order to secure funding.

In contrast to the evacuation of Galveston, state and city officials decided this time not to order a full evacuation of Houston, perhaps mindful of the chaotic experience of Hurricane Rita in 2005, when more people died during the traffic-clogged mass evacuation than during the storm. Instead, officials told residents of certain Zip codes to leave and urged others to shelter in place at their homes.

People appeared to be taking heed: Streets and freeways were largely empty by early evening, and most stores in the city's ubiquitous strip malls started to lock their doors and board up their windows just after lunch. The few businesses that remained open had closed by late afternoon, as Ike's initial winds and the first drops of rain could be felt here.

At Sugar Park Plaza, a strip mall in southwest Houston, the Subway sandwich shop ran out of bread just after noon because of people rushing in to stock up; one woman came in at noon to pick up 50 pre-ordered sandwiches. The Marshalls department store and the Home Depot across the street were closed, their windows boarded.

One store doing a brisk morning business was the Ace check-cashing shop. Next door, Carter's Country, a guns and ammunition store, was also open and making sales before closing in the afternoon.

Cars lined up at gas stations, heeding freeway bulletin boards that warned drivers to fill up their tanks, but there was no sign of panic or gasoline stockpiling.

Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and refining on the Texas coast have been suspended while the storm nears.