Houston - Galveston Update: President George Bush Pays a Visit

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GALVESTON– President Bush Tuesday toured the island of Galveston, which bore the brunt of Hurricane Ike's devastation, and pledged swift federal aid for millions of storm-struck Texans as the energy hub of Houston struggled to recover.

Three days after Ike slammed into the Texas coast, over 2 million customers remained without power and battered Galveston was deemed unfit for habitation.

"It's a tough situation on the coast," Bush said at a Houston airfield before viewing storm-damaged areas from the air and touring Galveston on foot.

Bush warned against "disaster fatigue" in a turbulent Atlantic storm season and urged citizens to give generously to relief efforts. Residents of his home state of Texas, he said, should not return to disaster-hit areas before it was safe.

The federal government will pay for debris removal and other recovery efforts after Hurricane Ike decimated Galveston and left millions without electricity, he said.

Five people were confirmed dead in Galveston and U.S. media reported up to 40 storm-related deaths including many in Ohio as Ike's remnants moved inland. Some of those reported deaths were from accidents related to the storm, such as people poisoned by carbon monoxide from using generators indoors.

Across from Galveston, officials said some 250 to 300 people were stranded on the isolated Bolivar Peninsula, a spit of land where Ike wiped out rows of beach homes. There were no confirmed fatalities there.

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Thunderstorms and flash floods complicated rescue efforts in Texas yesterday as helicopter and boat crews fought to save people stranded by Hurricane Ike.

About 2,000 people were plucked to safety in the biggest search-and-rescue operation in the state's history while hundreds awaited evacuation from homes devastated during an eight-hour battering by winds and fast-rising floodwaters.

At least four deaths were attributed to the storm, but officials said the toll could rise as teams with body bags scoured ruined communities, including Galveston, where 20,000 people ignored an order to evacuate.

Residents who were ferried by helicopter to Texas City told harrowing tales of survival. One man, Denis Covington, 63, spoke of how his home on stilts in Port Bolivar, a coastal town southeast of Houston, was smashed in two by a falling pylon and his dog was swept away.

He said: "I had to spend the second half of the hurricane in a tree just clinging on with rain sticking in to me like nails."

Conditions were at first too dangerous for rescue crews to reach Karen and Paul Thompson, both 57, at their home on stilts in Crystal Beach. They huddled together in a bedroom as the hurricane ripped their house apart and 4 metres of water crashed in from the Gulf. They were eventually winched to safety.

Mr Thompson said: "There were rows and rows of houses at Crystal Beach, but there ain't no more."

The recovery effort contrasted with the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005. Fleets of coaches from Nevada, Florida and the Carolinas moved through the disaster area to shift evacuees rescued by helicopters, while convoys containing food and water and lifting equipment were moved into the worst-hit areas, including Galveston, where the mayor, Lyda Ann Thomas, broke down and cried at the scale of the devastation.

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The official insistence that it could have been much worse — Ike's late eastward drift lessened a storm surge that had been predicted as apocalyptic — was little consolation to residents whose homes were wrecked by water, falling trees and winds that gusted in places well in excess of 100 mph. Or even to those facing an indefinite stay in a hot, dark home that emerged unscathed.

The full extent of the property damage as well as the human toll was still coming into focus late Saturday. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff could not yet put a dollar amount on damage, except to say that it would likely rival some of the "legendary" damage figures of storms past.

"By any measure, it was a huge storm," Chertoff said.

While government officials did preliminary surveys from land and air to get a sense of what lies ahead, search-and-rescue crews immediately began to comb through inundated areas along the coast to find out what happened to the estimated 140,000 people who had defied mandatory evacuation orders and stayed home.

For all the misery — during the hurricane and after — Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said people should think of how bad it might have been.

"I cannot tell you how I feel our community has been blessed," Emmett said. "We have avoided a lot of the tragedies we have seen in other places."

In Galveston, ground zero for Ike's assault, the wreckage surpassed that of any storm in recent memory. Ten buildings burned to the ground, another seven collapsed because of wind — including two apartment buildings — and huge portions of the island remained under water and by Saturday evening had not been reached by emergency personnel.

"Ike has not left the state yet," Perry said. "To all the Texans out there that are either in the path of this storm or situated in its deteriorating eye . . . keep your head down. If you're in an affected area, we are on our way to help you."

State officials said there are 57 helicopters in the air and 1,500 people on the ground involved in the operation. But there were scant details about the far-flung missions, which stretched from the Louisiana border to parts of Brazoria County.

Jack Colley, director of the governor's division of emergency management, said state authorities were ferrying storm victims to pre-arranged locations where transportation and medical attention can be provided.

"Where we see people we're picking them up," Colley said. "We pick them up and we're moving them to designated places." Officials did say they helped coordinate, with the U.S. Coast Guard, the rescue of four critically ill patient from a Galveston hospital.

Meanwhile, Perry said the state is working well with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A FEMA spokesman, Mark Stone, said before Perry spoke that crews hadn't received any rescue calls by early Saturday afternoon. At a sports arena in Houston, tractor-trailers and large sport utility vehicles sat idle as the vast storm churned northward across the state. Stone said federal officials are now seeking to pinpoint the hardest-hit areas.

Speaking to reporters at the emergency operations center in Austin, Perry said state officials have been "working well with our federal counterparts, with our local counterparts." In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Perry issued blistering criticisms of the agency. But he said Saturday it would be premature to engage in any finger-pointing.

"If it's a perfect operation I'll be surprised," he said. "I think we've got a good operation to date." He said in advance of the storm the state had "prepositioned the largest search and rescue operation in the history of the state of Texas."

Perry also urged Texans who had evacuated to wait official word before returning home. He said residents who ignored warning to evacuate Galveston would be allowed to stay but could not return if they left. Authorities said they would only allow emergency personnel to go to the island.

HOUSTON - Hurricane Ike flooded thousands of homes, blew out countless high-rise windows and left millions without electricity Saturday as authorities launched a massive search-and-rescue effort for people stranded by the rising water.

Emergency officials were still trying to confirm any casualties, but it appeared widespread deaths were unlikely. The storm rumbled ashore slightly weaker than expected -- Ike was a Category 2 with 110 mph winds when its eye hit Galveston at 2:10 a.m. CDT -- and dumped steady rain over eastern Texas as it lost wind power.

The major concern focused on the tens of thousands who ignored mandatory evacuation orders from coastal areas.

"Some people didn't evacuate when asked," President Bush said Saturday from the White House. "The storm has yet to pass, and I know there are people concerned about their lives."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry mobilized 7,500 National Guard troops, and Houston Mayor Bill White said firefighters and police officers started responding to emergencies as soon as conditions became safe Saturday morning.

"The unfortunate truth is we're going to have to go in and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely," said Andrew Barlow, a spokesman for Perry. "We'll probably do the largest search and rescue operation that's ever been conducted in the state of Texas."

About 1 million people fled coastal communities before the storm made landfall, but at least 140,000 chose to ride out the hurricane at home.