Ike Rips Into Texas

Big, bad Hurricane Ike thundered into the state of Texas early this morning, packing pounding rain, surging flood waters and 100-mph winds that left a trail of “extensive destruction” along the state’s gulf coast.

The storm – which made landfall near Galveston at 3:10 a.m. this morning – was literally as big as Texas itself when it hit, with tropical storm force winds stretching outward for hundreds of miles and its outer rain bands spiraling from Mexico all the way to Mississippi.

It’s still far too early to tell how much damage was done (and how many lives were lost), but from the looks of it a lot of Texans decided not to heed their state’s mandatory evacuation orders.

From the Associated Press:

Thousands of homes and government buildings had flooded, roads were washed out, 2.9 million people lost power and several fires burned unabated as crews could not reach them. But the biggest fear was that tens of thousands of people had defied orders to flee and would need to be rescued from submerged homes and neighborhoods.

“The unfortunate truth is we’re going to have to go in … and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely. We’ll probably do the largest search and rescue operation that’s ever been conducted in the state of Texas,” said Andrew Barlow, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry.

What a bunch of idiots.

Seriously, people. What a bunch of friggin’ idiots.

You know, the Mayor of New Orleans had the right idea just before Hurricane Gustav hit two weeks ago. He issued mandatory evacuations and said all the typical “get the hell out” stuff, but he then added this little tidbit for public consumption:

“If you stay, no one is coming to get you.”

You know what? It worked. With the exception of crazy weather reporters, New Orleans was a ghost town when Gustav hit.

It looks like the same thing can’t be said for the coast of Texas …

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