Ike cleanup starts, storm moves on

Tropical storm Ike was moving inland in Texas Saturday evening, leaving a massive cleanup job in Galveston and Houstonin its wake.

Rescue crews were wading through Galveston's flooded streets,checking onthousands of residents who chose to tough out the storm.

They were using high-wheel trucks,helicopters and boats to get around the island city.

"We are in a recovery mode," Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas told reporters.

The causeway linking the city to the mainland was damaged and closed, and at least 17 buildings were destroyed.

But the damage could have been a lot worse; the storm surge the waves whipped up by the wind was only about three or four metres above normal, causing much less damage thanthe originally predicted seven-or-eight-metre surge would have.

Downed power lines left more thanthree million customers in Texas and 140,000 in Louisiana without electricity.

At least two people died in Texas as a direct result of Ike. A falling treekilleda woman near Pinehurst, and a man was washed off a jetty near Corpus Christi.

Houston towers rained glass

In downtown Houston, windows from buildings including the 75-storeyJPMorgan Chase Tower fell into thestreets below.Pieces of office furniture and documentslittered the area.

"It looks like a bomb went off over there,"Houston Police officer Joseph Ledet said.

U.S. President George W.Bush declared the area a major disasterand ordered federal aid.

At 5 p.m. ET Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ike was continuing to weaken as it moved inland. The storm warning along the Texas and Louisiana coast was discontinued.

The centre was forecast to move through northeastern Texas and into Arkansas Saturday night.

The storm forced more than a million people to seek shelter away from the coast.