People in Houston, fourth U.S. city, on Thursday launched a mass evacuation before the arrival on Friday the coast of Texas (south) of Hurricane Ike, already hit hard the Caribbean, where he left a trail of destruction and death .
The Texas governor, Rick Perry, alerted the population of imminent danger: "My message to Texans (living) in the area of impact is expected this: complete their preparations because Ike is dangerous and is on its way," he warned.
After having caused more than a hundred dead in the Caribbean, the hurricane was at 21H00 GMT over the Gulf of Mexico, about 645 km from Gavelston, the coastal city nearest to Houston, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC ) Based in Miami.
Ike should touch the coast in southern Gavelston from Friday night, but the weather should worsen before, according to forecasts.
Roads and bridges were congested by tens of thousands of vehicles and the authorities of Harris County, which is part of the city texana, announced having started at 17H00 GMT evacuation of the flooded neighborhoods, where 250,000 people live, starting with the most vulnerable people, elderly, sick or disabled.
"We have sent, and continue sending (military aircraft) C-130 and ambulances", and "we have sent 1,350 buses to the region," elaborated one of the highest executive authorities Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, being interviewed on CNN .
President George W. Bush, who decreed a state of emergency in Texas, met with the secretary of Homeland Security, Chertoff David, and the director of the Federal Agency for Emergency Management (FEM) David Paulison, as well as the governor of Texas.
"He was informed about the route and the strength of the cyclone, which should be very important," said White House spokesman, Dana Perino.
Houston is a city of 2.2 million with a metropolitan area of 5.6 million.
The city is the control center of NASA, which closed on Thursday and did not resume its activities until the hurricane passes. Monitoring activities of flights were secured by teams in Austin (Texas) and Huntsville (Alabama, south), NASA explained in a statement.
For the moment, this is a category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum 5, with winds of 160 mph, but is expected to intensify in the coming hours and could reach Category 3 strength, and its winds should blow over 190 mph to reach Texas.
"We did not expect to arrive so close to us," said Joe Steinebaker, responsible for communication of Harris County, who warned that the hurricane could create waves of up to five metres high in Galveston. That could be "catastrophic" for certain people, he said, adding: "we want these people to go."
"This could almost be like a tsunami," said Dewhurst.
Some people, however opposed the evacuation order, as Leslie LeGrand, a resident of Galveston, explaining that "except that you really bad, we are not going anywhere."
His neighbor, Cecilia Padnos, expected to give Ike a turn last minute. During the passage of Rita in 2005, but had to move the hurricane passed on the other hand.
If the directors of the oil port of Corpus Christi, much further south, hesitate to evacuate, the production of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico was almost completely interrupted before the arrival of the hurricane, despite the fact that "current projections show that (Ike) will not affect most of the oil and gas installations in the Gulf ", announced the Department of Energy said in a statement.
Ike moves toward the U.S. coast after leaving a hundred dead in Haiti and great destruction in rural areas, and another five dead in Cuba, where more than 200,000 houses were destroyed.
