Tens of thousands of people decided to stay in Galveston and ride out Hurricane Ike.
They need our prayers.
About 40 percent of the city's 58,000 residents ignored calls to evacuate. And now they're phoning for help and getting this response, "We can't help you." I fear it's going to get quite grim. City Manager Steve LeBlanc went so far as to ask the media not to photograph "certain things" in the aftermath, referring to the possibility of dead bodies.
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Sensing the danger, the weather service was left to writing messages such as, "Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one or two story homes will face certain death. Many residences of average construction directly on the coast will be destroyed. Widespread and devastating personal property damage is likely elsewhere."
Unfortunately this may now come to pass on an island where more than 20,000 people remain to ride out a monster hurricane.
