Bush to visit Texas to support victims

George W Bush will visit Texas on Tuesday to express sympathy for victims of Hurricane Ike and lend support for recovery efforts.

Terry Panchot, left, helps Charles Cormier walk through floodwaters in front of their home in Galveston, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike on Sept 13.

George W Bush said today he will visit Texas on Tuesday to express sympathy for victims of Hurricane Ike and lend support for recovery efforts. "This is a tough storm and it's one that's going to require time for people to recover," the US president said from the White House's Roosevelt Room after receiving an update from his disaster relief chief, the energy secretary and others. Ike came ashore early yesterday at Galveston, Texas, as a strong Category 2 with 177 kph winds. "Our first priority is search and rescue," Mr Bush told reporters. He also mentioned restoring electricity, clearing debris and getting the Houston sewage plant running again. He urged residents who had evacuated ahead of the storm to heed warnings from local authorities before trying to return home. "It's very important for citizens, who I know are anxious to get home, to take your time and listen, take the advice of the local folks," the president said. On his trip to Texas, Bush said he intends to express "the federal government's support - sympathy on the one hand and support on the other".

Rescuers picked through a trail of devastation in Texas yesterday, after Hurricane Ike flattened hundreds of homes, flooded barrier islands and knocked out power to millions of people. The storm's hurricane force spread a swathe of destruction across a 800km span of the coast, largely cut off oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, and caused at least US$8bn (Dh29.39bn) in onshore damage. In Galveston, street after street was filled with canal-level waters more than 12 hours after the storm passed. Windows were blown out of flooded homes, swamped furniture lay in the streets and tree branches littered roadways.

Some deaths were reported, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said without specifying, but Texas Governor Rick Perry cautiously voiced optimism that his state had been spared the worst. More than 2.2 million people fled inland but more than 100,000 residents of low-lying areas, including 20,000 in Galveston alone, decided to ride out the storm despite warnings from the national weather service that a wall of water up to 6m high could spell "certain death." "Fortunately, the worst-case scenario that was projected in some areas did not occur, particularly in the Houston ship channel," Mr Perry told a press conference. "But there is plenty of damage out there." The centre of Ike made landfall as a category two hurricane at 7.10am (GMT) on Galveston Island, where the sea swelled up in fury, whipsawing the country's fourth largest city Houston prompting thousands of 911 emergency calls across the hurricane impact zone. Mr Perry announced Texas and federal agencies launched the state's largest search and rescue operations just hours after Ike barrelled ashore. Houston's port is one of the world's largest, and computer models had forecast that much of it could have been submerged by the storm surge. Live television images along large area of the Texas coast, including Galveston and nearby Clear Lake, showed boats tossed about a marina like toys, electricity poles and oak trees snapped or uprooted, siding sheared off buildings and homes, and floodwaters covering entire neighbourhoods. At the landmark Chase Tower, the tallest building in Texas, windows were blown off most of one face of the building, while glass, furniture and computers rained on streets below, witnesses said. Oil and gas production in the Gulf was largely halted, though the US Department of Energy said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there. At least 13 refineries were shuttered, representing a combined capacity of 3.7m barrels of crude oil per day, a fifth of US refinery capacity. Late yesterday in Washington, George W Bush declared a major disaster in Louisiana state, opening the gates for federal aid to help recovery from Ike. Days earlier he made the same declaration for Texas. City resident, Diane Thiel, 62, who took refuge with about 1,000 people in a hotel, said Ike appeared more dangerous than hurricanes Carla and Alicia that struck in 1961 and 1983. "I have never seen a hurricane like this. The amount of destruction is going to be beyond belief," Ms Thiel said. The storm knocked out power to nearly 2.4m homes in and around Houston, including throughout the entire barrier island of Galveston, and another 220,000 customers in Louisiana, the US Department of Energy reported. Three US-based risk assessment firms tagged the onshore damage at anywhere between eight and $18bn. * AFP and AP