Giant Hurricane Ike began lashing the Texas Gulf Coast today with its fierce category 3 winds threatening to shut down US oil industry and flood the big water front area which is already under waist deep water.
Ike, which has already churned through the Gulf of Mexico is now on a collision course with Texas, where already over a million people in coastal areas have been evacuated but thousand others have ignored calls to leave, deciding to brave it out.
Heavy rains have pushed a wall of water that has caused floods all along the coast, shut down oil refineries, endangered a freighter at sea and destroyed a pier in Galveston.
Ike's maximum winds were holding steady at 966 kph and the storm was moving northeast that put its landfall towards evening southeast of Galveston, the National Hurricane Centre reported.
Officials said the initial flooding was only a preview of worse things to come, and one hurricane expert, Jeff Masters, warned that the storm "stands poised to become one of the most damaging hurricanes of all time".
President George W Bush, speaking in Oklahoma City, said he was "deeply concerned" about the hurricane.
"The federal government will not only help with the pre-storm strategy, but once this storm passes we'll be working with state and local authorities to help people recover as quickly as possible.
US forecasters said the storm's size meant it would produce high storm surges all along the coast in western Louisiana and eastern Texas, as well as dumping 5 to 10 inches of rain.
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