GALVESTON, Texas, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Hurricane Ike, packing winds as strong as 110 mph, slammed ashore in Texas Saturday morning, and was centered over Houston after flooding Galveston Island.

The center of the monster Category 2 hurricane officially made landfall at 2:10 a.m., whipping the barrier island city of Galveston, where some 23,000 residents had ignored pleas and mandatory orders to evacuate the city ahead of what meteorologists say could be deadliest U.S. storm since 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

Rescuers had been pulled off the streets because of Ike's fury and were not expected to return until Sunday.

"We don't know what we're going to find tomorrow," Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas told the Houston Chronicle. "We hope we'll find that the people who didn't leave here are alive and well."

Houston's CenterPoint Energy told CNN that 1.8 million of its 2 million customers in metropolitan Houston were without power Saturday morning as high winds and heavy downpours pelted the 4th-largest U.S. city.

Floods also hit further to the east in Louisiana where at least 1,800 homes and businesses were underwater in Cameron Parish, the broadcaster said.

Officials say three deaths so far had been attributed to Hurricane Ike.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.