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GALVESTON, Texas-A monster-sized Hurricane Ike bore down on the Texas coast late Friday, threatening to rattle the sparkling skyscrapers of America's fourth-largest city, shut down the heart of the U.S oil industry for days and obliterate waterfront towns already flooded with waist-high water.Though nearly 1 million people evacuated coastal communities in the days leading up to the storm, tens of thousands ignored calls to leave and decided to tough it out. But as wind-whipped floodwaters began crashing into coastal homes, many changed their minds. Galveston fire crews rescued more than 300 people who were walking through flooded streets, clutching clothes and other belongings as they tried to wade to safety."We were going street by street seeing people who were trying to escape the flood waters," Fire Chief Michael Varela said. "I'm assuming these were people who made the mistake of staying."At 600 miles across, the storm was nearly as big as Texas itself, and threatened to give the state its worst pounding in a generation. It was on track to crash ashore early Saturday as possibly a Category 3 storm with winds topping 111 mph and a two-story storm surge near Galveston, the same site that suffered the U.S.'s worst natural disaster when a storm struck without warning and killed 6,000 more than a century ago.Officials were growing increasingly worried about the stalwarts, and many communities imposed curfews to discourage looters. Authorities in three counties alone said roughly 90,000 stayed behind, despite a warning from forecasters that many of those in one- or two-story homes on the coast faced "certain death."At dark Friday, the Coast Guard suspended a search for a 19-year-old man who was lost in waves off North Padre Island, about 10 miles east of Corpus Christi...To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
