7:46 AM EDT: As I explain below, it appears Ike’s storm surge was far less severe than all the models and experts predicted. This was not a Category 2 hurricane with a Category 4 surge, as we featured it would be. Surge heights generally peaked around 10-12 feet, not the 15-25 feet projected.

Obviously, this is very good news. Hopefully the media will report it, rather than ignoring it. When a hurricane underperforms expectations, people need to be told this — and, if possible, be told why it happened — rather than being subjected to ongoing, unrelenting hype that pretends a lucky non-calamity was the calamity we feared. When the hype continues as if nothing has changed, the public is less likely to recognize that things could easily have been far worse, and that the doom-and-gloom predictions actually appeared fully justified at the time they were made, based on then-available data. This leads to ever more cynicism and complacency about future predictions. This is actually where the media screws up most severely in my view: in failing to ramp down the hype, once it becomes clearly unjustified.

All that said, the extent of the damage is not fully known yet. It should begin to become clear in the coming hours. The local Houston TV stations will undoubtedly be better sources of information than the national media. Also: lots of storm updates from the Houston Chronicle staff blog (including word that the adrift freighter Antalina and its 22-member crew survived the storm; and, on a less happy note, this quote from Galveston’s fire chief: “For us, one to 10, I’d say it’s a 10. I was back here in Alicia, and we didn’t have this type of water, so this is definitely a worse storm than we’ve had.”). More local-news liveblogs from CBS 11 and ABC 13.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports:

A massive Hurricane Ike ravaged southeast Texas early Saturday, battering the coast with driving rain and ferocious wind gusts as residents who decided too late they should have heeded calls to evacuate made futile calls for rescue.

Though it would be daybreak before the storm’s toll was clear, already, the damage was extensive. Thousands of homes and government buildings had flooded, roads were washed out and several fires burned unabated as crews could not reach them. But the biggest fear was that tens of thousands of people had defied orders to flee and would need to be rescued from submerged homes and neighborhoods.

“The unfortunate truth is we’re going to have to go in … and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely. We’ll probably do the largest search and rescue operation that’s ever been conducted in the state of Texas,” said Andrew Barlow, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry.

Several fires were burning untended across Houston and 911 operators received about 1,250 calls in 24 hours, said Frank Michel, spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White.

Streets around the city’s glamorous theater district became rushing streams and shards of glass were falling from the sparkling skyscrapers that define the skyline of America’s fourth-largest city. Winds were estimated to be 20-30 mph faster at the top of the steel and glass towers than they were at ground level.

The stubborn storm remained a Category 2 hurricane with winds topping 100 mph, but started moving away from Houston on Saturday morning. It was about 15 miles east-northeast of Houston Intercontinental Airport. It was expected to turn toward Arkansas later in the day.

Here’s an animated GIF of the storm’s motion on radar between 3:09 AM EDT (basically the exact moment of landfall) and 6:11 AM EDT, when the eye made its closest approach to Houston.

Here’s the live radar loop.

I’ll be away from my computer for a while; next update will probably be mid-to-late morning.