Houston  - The lethal hurricane bearing down on the Texas coast has sent 1.2 million people fleeing for safety as Ike threatens with 16- metre breakers and 7-metre flooding, Texas Governor Rick Perry said Friday.

The evacuation included 12,500 seriously ill or elderly people, Perry told CNN broadcaster.

"The evacuation went relatively well," he said.

Hurricane Ike is now a huge category-2 storm that could strengthen to category 3 by the time it slams into the Gulf Coast and Galveston between 0200 and 0600 GMT.

Houston  - About 1,000 inmates on Friday remained in a jail on Galveston Island, a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico that Hurricane Ike is expected to hit first.

The prisoners and a full staff stayed in the Galveston County Jail as huge waves started rolling over the island, with Ike expected to make landfall between 0200 and 0600 GMT Saturday morning.

Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas ordered a mandatory evacuation of Galveston on Thursday.

Houston  - With huge waves already rolling over Galveston Island and the Texas coast Friday morning, US President George W Bush sent an urgent appeal to stubborn residents who refused to evacuate.

Hurricane Ike was aimed dead-on to hit Galveston, a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, and Houston further inland, bearing winds of 195 kilometres an hour as it gathered steam over the warm Gulf of Mexico waters.

The storm is expected to make landfall between 0200 and 0600 GMT Saturday morning.

Houston, Texas- Soaring oil prices have pushed Exxon Mobil to a record profit for the second quarter of 2008, with the world's largest publicly-traded oil company on Thursday posting a 14-per-cent rise in net income to 11.7 billion dollars.

Representing the largest-ever quarterly profit for a US company, the rise mirrors strong quarterly performances by European competitors BP and Shell.

Revenue meanwhile climbed to 138.1 billion dollars for the period, up 40 per cent on Q2 2007, the Houston-based energy giant said in a statement.

The figures however come in below analysts' expectations, with Exxon shares remaining under pressure.

A report released on Tuesday articulated that Houston i