Weather Signs

HOUSTON — It took only hours for Hurricane Ike to swamp vast sections of the Texas Gulf Coast and shatter parts of a once-gleaming skyline in the nation's fourth-largest city. Yet Ike's bitter legacy is likely to linger for months. Much of the region is covered in debris, 2.5 million people in three states lack power, the water supply has been threatened and a key center of the nation's oil and gas industry has been knocked off line. Fifteen GulfCoast refineries were shut down Sunday, including ExxonMobil's Baytown, Texas, facility, the nation's largest refinery. A trail of thunderstorms sat over parts of southeastern Texas during the early morning, dropping more rain on already flooded areas. Although Texas Gov. Rick Perry says the Gulf region escaped a "worst-case" scenario, jarring images of destruction confronted rescue crews as they moved through a giant disaster zone, trying to account for thousands of residents who had ignored officials' pleas to evacuate before the storm. At least 10 waterfront structures in Galveston, where Ike roared ashore early Saturday, were swept into the Gulf.

The death toll from Ike rose to 30 in eight states, far fewer than the 1,600 killed when Katrina hit the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts in 2005. But the destruction from Ike is scattered across hundreds of miles in Texas and Louisiana and likely will cost billions of dollars It is unclear when the estimated 2 million people who fled the area — and spread throughout Texas and elsewhere — will be able to return. A massive search-and-rescue effort continued into Sunday evening and was credited with saving nearly 2,000 people stranded by Ike's fury. It could take two days before authorities complete a house-to-house search for casualties in Galveston. McCraw said another 2,000 people, many of whom had refused to evacuate before the storm, were being moved to shelters in San Antonio. Most of Houston lacked power Sunday, and Perry urged residents to stay away from damaged areas until local officials announced it was safe to come back. Schools in Houston and in several other districts were closed indefinitely. Health officials urged residents to use bottled water or boil tap water.

CHICAGO (AP) — Just two weeks ago it was drought that was causing many Illinois farmers some sleepless nights. And now it's the weekend's record rainfall and ensuing flooding that are giving grief to corn and soybean producers in northern and central Illinois. University of Illinois agricultural economist Stu Ellis said the heavy rains could provide the right environment for fungus to sprout and spread in soybean fields. Ellis said the area around his home in Decatur got more than six inches of rain during the weekend, with some soybean fields turning yellow — already saturated from rain last week. "We've never had flooding like this," said Tom DeGiulio, town manager in Munster, Ind. About 1 million households and businesses had no electricity Monday morning in Ohio alone, and authorities said it could take a week for power to be restored in some areas. Roughly 575,000 Duke Energy customers in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky plus 539,000 American Electric customers in Ohio were still without power Monday. In New York, more than 60,000 people from Buffalo to Albany were without power Monday after high wind during the night.