Massive search and recovery operations were underway in storm-battered Texas, where officials said 10 people were killed and thousands rescued by boat and helicopter after Ike slammed into the southern state on Saturday.

"We're working with FEMA to get people food and water, cleaning up debris off the streets, facilitating (local energy company) Centerpoint's efforts to get power restored and just trying to help businesses get up and running," said Joe Laud, of the Houston emergency center.

The death toll across the region was likely to rise as the recovery effort continued, local authorities warned, as four people were reported to have died in the Midwest, along with one person in Arkansas and two in Tennessee, as Ike continued on its deadly course.

The storm carved a path of destruction from the Mississippi Valley to the Great Lakes, with hurricane-force winds hitting Kentucky and flooding reported as far north as Chicago, Illinois.

President George W. Bush said Monday that Ike's devastating path through key oil refining areas would bring "upward pressure" on already soaring gasoline prices.

At least 10 offshore oil platforms were damaged in the storm, while Houston-area oil refineries that produce 20 percent of the nation's gasoline remained shuttered and offline.

"One of the big pushes we are working on today, aggressively, is to get the Houston Ship Channel back to a free flow of commerce and traffic," said Senior Chief Petty Officer Steve Carleton of the US Coast Guard.

"Our goal is to get the refineries that are not online the oil they need, to get up and running," added Carleton.

Two oil rigs were adrift in the Gulf due to the storm and another remained unaccounted for, the Houston Business Journal reported.

Bush planned to travel to Texas Tuesday to see the devastation first hand, saying he expected to hear from "very frustrated" storm victims.

"And my message will be that, 'We hear you and we'll work as hard and fast we can to help you get your lives back up to normal," said Bush, whose response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 drew widespread criticism.

The amphibious assault ship USS Massau left Norfolk, Virginia, Monday bound for Galveston, with the US Army corps of engineers trying to reopen Houston ports and channels.

An estimated 20,000 people on the Texas coast ignored evacuation orders and tried to ride out the tempest, despite warnings of "certain death" from the national weather service.

Simon Chabel of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told AFP that as of late Sunday 2,100 people had been rescued throughout Texas, after Ike splintered houses, flooded roads and felled trees. Emergency teams also helped 1,635 people evacuate.

In rubble-strewn Houston, the fourth most populous US city, a week-long night curfew has been imposed because of flooding and the danger of downed power lines.

Local authorities in Houston and Galveston told residents to boil water as a precaution amid fears that broken sewers and a disrupted water supply could trigger health emergencies.

On the devastated island city of Galveston, 11 people were rescued from the battered remains of a large sea front Flagship hotel built on stilts.

By the time rescuers reached the site Monday the hotel's walls had blown away by the force of the rising sea and ferocious 110-mph winds.

The number of households without electricity across the Gulf Coast and Midwest was still in the millions. Of 2.6 million households in Texas, power had been restored to 500,000 customers as of Monday morning, the utility company Centerpoint said.

Officials meanwhile told evacuees to hold off returning home.

"Galveston has been hit hard. We have no power. We have no gas. We have no communications. We're not sure when any of that will be up and running," Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said.

"Do not come back to Galveston," she said in a plea to her city's residents. "You cannot live here at this time."

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