Hurricane Ike strengthened in the Gulf’s warm waters Wednesday and churned toward the Texas coast, and officials started to evacuate the first of millions of residents who could be in the storm’s path.

Ike bloomed to a Category 2 storm and was likely to grow even stronger before its predicted strike on the Texas coast early Saturday.

Officials in Matagorda County, about halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi, began a mandatory evacuation for residents in its coastal portions. County Judge Nate McDonald said his region expected to be the epicenter of the storm.

If more Texas officials order a mandatory exodus, it would be the first large-scale evacuation in South Texas history. State and county officials let people decide for themselves whether to leave a hurricane area until just before Hurricane Rita struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Now county officials can order people out of harm’s way.

Gov. Rick Perry has already declared 88 coastal counties disaster areas to start the flow of state aid, activated 7,500 National Guard troops and began preparing for an evacuation, lining up “buses rather than body bags.” Schools in the Corpus Christi area called off classes for Thursday and Friday, as well as weekend sports events.

Texas officials were encouraging residents in the path of Hurricane Ike to do three things–listen to what local officials say, monitor weather reports and gas up, now.

“We have a fuel team that is part of the state operation system in Austin,” said Allison Castle, spokeswoman for Perry. “They are helping to push fuel to hurricane areas. One of the lessons we learned from past hurricanes is we need to have fuel ready.”

At 2 p.m. EDT, the storm was about 255 miles west of Key West, Fla., and was moving toward the northwest at about 13 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It had top sustained winds of around 100 mph. Category 2 storms have winds between 96 mph and 110 mph.

For more on Ike’s path see “Ike Gains Strength Over Gulf, Aims for Texas.”  

For information on preparing for a hurricane, see:

• Prepare Plans and Farms for Hurricane Season
  
• Preparing a Veterinary Practice for a Hurricane
  
• To access the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center for storm tracking maps and forecasts go to NHC.noaa.gov.