Many Rescues, 1 Death in Texas

With Hurricane Ike bearing down on Texas, rescuers continued to evacuate coastal residents from the flooding, the Houston Chronicle reports. Emergency workers used an Army personnel carrier to evacuate residents of High Island, in far eastern Galveston County, stranded by high waters. Tragically, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a falling branch as his parents cut down a tree in preparation for the storm.

The boy was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Montgomery County, north of Houston. In Galveston, police rescued a disabled couple from a house near the seawall. The couple’s son said his father, 83, and mother, 72, had initially thought they would wait out the storm due to fragile health, but changed their minds when water flooded the first floor of their house. (More Hurricane Ike stories.)