Ike gathers strength on way to Texas ...
Ike leaves four dead on Cuba ...
Judge rejects 9/11 burial claims ...
The National Hurricane Center issued the grave warning to those living in low-lying areas around Galveston Bay.
More than a million people in Texas have been advised to leave their homes before Ike hits late on Friday night.
The storm has already killed more than 70 people in the Caribbean, with Haiti and Cuba particularly badly hit.
At 0600 GMT on Friday, Ike was located about 300 miles (485km) south-east of Galveston, and had winds of around 100 mph (160km/h).
After barrelling into Galveston, the hurricane looked on course to hit the US's fourth largest city, Houston.
Forecasters warned that because of the size of the storm, the low-lying coastal areas could be hit by a 20ft (6m) high surge of water and 50ft (15m) high waves.
"All neighbourhoods and possibly entire coastal communities will be inundated during the period of the peak storm tide," the National Hurricane Center said in a statement.
"Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one- or two-storey homes will face certain death."
The warning was issued after it became apparent that some residents in the Galveston Bay area were resisting orders to evacuate.
"There's more people here than I thought," Alicia Cahill, a public information officer for Galveston was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
The Texas authorities have laid on more than 1,000 buses to facilitate the exodus.
In Galveston, 75 buses are transporting residents to the state capital, Austin.
Weak and chronically ill hospital patients are being moved to San Antonio, about 190 miles from Houston.
Almost all energy production in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut down as a precaution, but the US Department of Energy said the storm was expected to miss most of the installations.
President George W Bush has declared a federal emergency in Texas, allowing funds to be freed to help the state deal with the storm.
Aid appeal
Hurricane Ike killed four people, wrecked tens of thousands of buildings and destroyed crops when it slammed into Cuba.
The UN estimates the cost of the damage at $3bn-$4bn (£1.7bn-£2.26bn).
The island nation was already reeling from the impact of Hurricane Gustav, which destroyed about 100,000 homes when it hit the island at the end of August.
Ike earlier caused 66 deaths in Haiti and reportedly damaged 80% of the homes in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has endured the onslaught of four tropical storms in a three-week period, causing more than 550 deaths.
The UN has appealed for more than $100m (£57m) in international aid to assist Haiti, where most people live on less than a dollar a day.
The US has pledged $10m (£5.7m) in aid to Haiti, where the UN estimates 800,000 people are in temporary shelters.
Washington also offered $100,000 (£57,000) in initial aid to Cuba, whose government has been subject to a US trade embargo for four decades.
Cuba turned the offer down, asking instead that the US sells it supplies on credit.
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(BBC)
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