The sky remains cloudy, but it no longer seems threatening. Gusts of wind sweep along the pier, where powerful waves coming from the Gulf of Mexico come to die.

Several hours after the passage of Hurricane Ike, downgraded to a tropical depression Sunday by the National Hurricane Center, the calm seems to have returned to this small seaside city.

Relief teams get down to work as their helicopters crisscross the sky more and more often.

In the streets, dazed residents walk, surveying the damage caused by the storm.

The center of Ike made landfall as a Category Two hurricane early Saturday on Galveston Island, where the sea swelled up in fury, whipsawing the country's fourth-largest city Houston and prompting thousands of 911 emergency calls across the impact zone, according to the Miami-based NHC.

Street after street was filled with water 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.

Thanks to an effective drainage system, the water level quickly subsided everywhere, except on the west side of the city.

So far, authorities have not reported any casualties.

Nearly 20,000 of the city's 58,000 residents did not want, or were unable, to follow a mandatory evacuation order.

At least 17 buildings were destroyed. The access road that leads to the coastal city is unrecognizable. Dozens of boats that had been moored at the marina were thrown onto the pavement, offering a surrealistic spectacle.

On the beachside boulevard, piles of debris include beams and frames of destroyed houses that block the roadway.

Some restaurants have been completely destroyed. The victims of the storm include the "Balinese Ballroom," which has operated in this seaside resort since the 1920s. A lateral wall of a hotel has collapsed, leaving the rooms open to the wind.

An emergency shelter was set up at a local school, and some 200 people found refuge there Saturday.

Inside, Ashia Turner, a young 18-year-old woman with two children, said she hoped to return quickly to her house.

"It was my first hurricane, so I didn't take it seriously," she said. "My daughter was starting to scream so I decided to go to the shelter."

John Calvington, 43, said he could not leave the island because his car malfunctioned. He said the night was tough and he was under the impression that it was never going to end.

Galveston was last hit by a hurricane in 1900. That storm caused more than 8,000 deaths and is remembered as the most serious natural disaster in the history of the United States.

earlier related report
Hurricane Ike ravages Texas with massive flooding
Hurricane Ike slammed into Texas on Saturday packing a massive ocean surge, knocking out power to millions and flooding coastal areas where thousands remained holed up in their homes.

The center of Ike made landfall at 0710 GMT on Galveston Island, where the sea rose up in fury and smashed over a historic seawall to flood vast areas of the island, and whipsawed the country's fourth largest city Houston prompting numerous 911 emergency calls across the hurricane impact zone.

Massive damage and flooding was reported across a 500-mile (800-kilometer) swathe of the Gulf Coast and more than a million people fled inland, with the storm knocking out power to more than two million homes in and around Houston, including throughout the entire island of Galveston.

But officials said more than 100,000 residents of low-lying areas decided to ride out the storm despite warnings from the national weather service that a wall of water up to 20 feet (6.0 meters) high could spell "certain death."

Early reports from Galveston suggest the storm surge, while devastating, was not as high as earlier forecast, although damage was expected to be severe.

First light unveiled scenes of devastation in parts of the Texas coast, including Galveston and nearby Clear Lake where live television images showed boats tossed about a harbor like toys, electricity poles and oak trees snapped or uprooted, siding shorn off buildings and homes, and floodwaters covering entire neighborhoods.

Strong winds and rain raked Houston, home to a major US port and key refineries. The windows of several skyscrapers were blown out in the city, where Mayor Bill White urged people to stay off the streets and called on residents to use bottled water as a power outtage lowered pressure at a key pumping station.

Even as the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported Ike weakening to a Category One hurricane, emergency crews and city workers were only just beginning to venture out on what is expected to be one of Texas' largest-ever rescue operations.

"Our emergency response vehicles... over 10,000 city employees, our fire and (emergency management) department, police, public works and solid waste, are already being deployed in the field in response to those 911 calls that are of a true emergency, life-threatening nature," Mayor White told a televised press conference.

US President George W. Bush, who was keeping close tabs on conditions in his home state of Texas as well as hard-hit Louisiana, announced a suspension of restrictions on some imported gasoline in response to Hurricane Ike, which disrupted operations at Gulf Coast oil refineries and prompted gas price-gouging in several US states as high as 50 percent above normal rates.

Oil and gas production in the Gulf was largely shut off, though the US Department of Energy said Ike appeared likely to spare most rigs and platforms there.

"Obviously, this is a huge storm. It is causing a lot of damage. Not only in Texas but also in parts of Louisiana," Bush said.

At 1500 GMT, the NHC said the storm was steadily weakening, with sustained winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour, down from 110 miles (175 kilometers) an hour at landfall.

"Ike could remain a hurricane through this afternoon," the center warned.

After blasting the coast and Houston Ike was still packing a wallop as it churned northwards and over Trinity, Texas, 80 miles (128 kilometers) north of Houston.

At least 13 refineries were shuttered, representing a combined capacity of 3.7 million barrels of crude oil per day, a fifth of US refinery capacity.

In Galveston, Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew starting Friday and ending Monday morning. Rescue crews were waiting for extreme winds to die down enough to allow them to begin search and rescue operations on the island.

"The easy part is now," said one firefighter preparing for a mission in Galveston, much of which was flooded by Saturday morning.

"But picking up the bodies will be another story given the phone calls we received yesterday when we could go nowhere."

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