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GALVESTON, Texas (CNN) -- Twenty-four hours after Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston with 110-mph winds, rescuers began efforts on Sunday to check on the estimated 20,000 people who failed to heed mandatory evacuation orders.
Nearly 2,000 people who did not evacuate for Hurricane Ike have been rescued along the southeastern Texas coast, said Steve McCraw, director of Texas Homeland Security. Search and rescue officials planned to evacuate up to 10,500 Galveston residents.
The storm has been blamed for at least 15 deaths.
On Sunday, a Galveston County sheriff's official said three bodies were pulled from storm wreckage in Port Bolivar, bringing to 10 the number of reported deaths in Texas linked to Ike.
Another storm death was reported in Arkansas, where wind knocked down a tree, killing a man inside a trailer home.
Louisiana Chief Medical Officer Louis Cataldie confirmed four deaths as a result of the Ike -- two in Terrebonne Parish and two in Jefferson Davis Paris -- but details on the deaths were not immediately released Sunday.
The storm had broken apart by Sunday evening into a low pressure area that delivered rain and high wind from Texas northward into the lower Ohio River Valley.
Flood and flash flood warnings were in effect from coastal Texas into Illinois, and forecasters said the front would cross the lower Great Lakes area Sunday evening and be in Canada's St. Lawrence River Valley by Monday morning.
It still carried sustained winds of 35 to 45 mph and gusts as high as 70 mph, the weather service said. The storm managed to flood parts of suburban St. Louis, Missouri, including the Brentwood neighborhood. The weather service reported at least 4 inches of rain fell on the area.
Debris litters a Galveston street on Sunday morning.
Back in Galveston, officials were still assessing the damage left after Ike, which struck it as a Category 2 hurricane.
Floods filled the historic district with 7 feet of water, and a foot of water flowed into the city's courthouse, where many people rode out the storm, Galveston County official Margaret Bunch said.
Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the island would be closed while authorities assessed the damage, including to the causeway, which was in "bad shape" because of debris and road damage. The causeway links Galveston Island with the mainland.
Ike also hammered residents farther inland, prompting them to become part of the estimated 40,000 Texans seeking refuge in 250 shelters across the state, according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Chertoff said rescue missions remained the top priority for his agency, but 80 trucks carrying food and water were heading for Houston.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said 15 points of distribution for food and water would open by midnight Sunday.
Ike's winds and flooding also left 2.6 million homes and businesses in Texas and Louisiana without power, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, and destroyed structures along the Texas-Louisiana coast, much of which was declared a major disaster area.
President Bush said Sunday he will visit Texas on Tuesday, and he warned that it's "going to require time for people to recover.'
Source Link: http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2008/9/15/382451.html
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