Texas: With Hurricane Ike gathering strength on its collision course with the Texas Gulf coast, thousands of people have fled coastal areas.
Ike is now a category 2 storm with 100mph winds. The US National Hurricane Center has predicted that it could grow to a ferocious category 4 storm before it comes ashore.
President Bush has already declared a federal emergency for Texas and allowed some federal disaster assistance.
According to Texas authorities more evacuations are expected in the coming hours. Meanwhile, the latest projections indicate that Ike will make landfall towards the middle of the Texas coast and then move towards the Gulf of Mexico.
Oil companies have already started to evacuate employees from the area. Texas is home to 26 refineries, which can process almost 4.8 million barrels of crude per day.
Earlier on Thursday Residents along the Texas coast were evacuated as Hurricane Ike took aim at the US mainland.
Thursday morning the storm was about 760 km east-southeast of Galveston, Texas. Forecasters said Ike was "a very large tropical cyclone" and would bring high tides and strong winds before the storm itself reaches the coast.
US space agency NASA closed its Johnson Space Centre in Houston, moving operations to back-up facilities and flying aircraft to another site.
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