Ike floods roads, whips waves along Texas

Hurricane Ike, a colossal storm nearly as big as Texas itself, began battering the coast, threatening to obliterate waterfront towns and give the skyscrapers, refineries and docks of the fourth-largest U.S. city their worst pounding in a generation.

But even as towering waves started crashing over the 17-foot (5-meter) Galveston seawall and floodwaters rose in low-lying areas Friday, it became clear that many of the 1 million coastal residents who had been ordered to get out refused to so and were taking their chances.

Authorities in three counties alone said roughly 90,000 stayed behind, despite a warning from forecasters that many of those in one- or …