BREAKING NEWS: Ike Strikes Texas

Hurricane Ike landed a powerful punch on the Texas Gulf Coast early Saturday, sparking fires, flooding streets and knocking out power to more than 4 million people.

Published on September 13, 2008

Ike's storm surge flooded Galveston's historic district and kept firefighters from reaching several blazes that burned out of control.

Ike idled more than a fifth of U.S. oil production as it came ashore at the barrier island city of Galveston as a strong Category 2 storm at 2:10 a.m. CDT with heavy rains and sustained 110 mph winds, the National Hurricane Center said.

The raging storm flooded Galveston and submerged a 17-foot sea wall built to protect the city after a 1900 hurricane killed at least 8,000 people. More than half its 60,000 residents fled, but the fate of those who stayed to ride out the storm remained unclear.

Oil refineries along the western shore of Galveston Bay as well as NASA's Johnson Space Center may have been spared the worst of the flooding. But the storm's huge size meant that it flooded parts of Louisiana, prompting a flurry of overnight rescues far from its center, authorities said.

Houston Mayor Bill White advised residents to drink bottled water or boil tap water as a precaution, but he said nothing indicated that the water supply was contaminated.

It's going to take several weeks to get all this power restored," he said. "We've been saying two to three weeks."