TYLER, Texas -- More than 1.2 million people chased from the Texas coast by Hurricane Ike waited safely but restlessly Friday, including thousands weary from the mental and financial toll of a second evacuation in as many weeks.

AP

Baytown family tries to get some rest at a Dallas shelter.

But unlike Gustav, which missed Texas after bus loads had already fled, Ike left no doubt about where it would strike: the Houston area, with Category 2-strength winds, rains and storm surges that forecasters warned would be deadly.

State-deployed buses made their last runs Friday, whisking coastal residents out of harm’s way as Ike’s expected landfall late Friday or early Saturday inched closer.

Most major cities reported a steady but not unmanageable stream of shelter-seekers. In a move designed to avoid highway gridlock as the storm closed in, most of Houston’s 2 million residents hunkered down after being ordered not to leave.

Tyler didn’t have a bed or cot to spare in the East Texas city by Friday morning, but Dallas and San Antonio had plenty of room.

An abandoned Wal-Mart housed about half of the 3,300 evacuees in Tyler, officials said. The 120,000-square-foot facility was pressed into service because some of the shelters used for Gustav weren’t available. The parking lot included portable toilets and mobile shower units.

“It’s disgusting,” Jeremiah Jones of Beaumont said as he watched a basketball game on a temporary goal provided by a church.  “My niece, who is 2 years old, walked into a bathroom and said, ‘Uh-uh.”’

City officials said the changing nature of the storm left them just 24 hours to prepare, less than half the time they normally get. They also lost their convention center to a scheduling conflict after it housed about 600 for Gustav, said city spokeswoman Susan Guthrie.

“For having to put it all together in 24 hours, I think it went about as well as you can expect,” said Tyler Mayor Barbara Bass.

Wesley Sellers, another Beaumont evacuee, fled Gustav by going to Houston, where he has family. He didn’t have that option this time.

“It’s not a place I want to be, but I don’t have a choice,” Sellers said. “There’s no place else to go.”

The evacuation’s scale dwarfed that of Hurricane Gustav, when only three Southeast Texas counties faced mandatory evacuation orders. But leaving their vulnerable homes so soon again was a cruel and costly deja-vu for many residents of Jefferson, Hardin and Orange counties.

Lisa Pratt, still broke after spending $500 to leave her Nederland home last week ahead of Gustav, reluctantly corralled her three teenagers into her car Friday and drove aimlessly north in search of shelter.

A mandatory evacuation order for her city had been issued Thursday. But not until the water surge began creeping nearby early Friday did she break down and stuff her trunk with suitcases and pillows again.

“It’s not that we ignored it,” said Pratt, 38, of the evacuation order. “We just have no money left from the last time we evacuated. We have nowhere to go.”

Convention centers, churches and the old Wal-Mart in Tyler were among at least 79 shelters set up around the state. Hotels and cots in Tyler filled up with more than 3,200 evacuees by Friday, and officials there had begun directing buses and cars of shelter-seeking families out of East Texas.

In Dallas, many evacuees streamed in by car, holding blankets, hauling coolers, plastic bags and luggage stuffed with clothes and toiletries.

About 80 percent of Galveston Island’s 57,000 residents had left by mid-afternoon Friday, authorities said.

“The roads are absolutely empty—a wonderful sign,” said John Simsen, Galveston County’s emergency management coordinator.

On the Bolivar Peninsula, a 32-mile spit of land on the eastern edge of the county, U.S. Coast Guard helicopters attempted Friday to remove several hundred residents stranded after rising waters covered the only road.

“You can assume, to some degree, those people were surprised at the level of the storm surge,” Simsen said.

About 60 people in High Island, at the easternmost part of the peninsula, were rescued, said Ryan Holzaepfel, the emergency management coordinator for nearby Chambers County. Another 60 elected to stay, he said.

“Believe it or not, there are some people who refused to leave, and now they are trapped,” he said.

Clara Dolloff, 48, of Baytown, briefly left the Dallas Convention Center with her young grandchildren for fresh air, then fumed as she discovered they would have to again pass through long security lines to get back in.

“I’d rather swim in a hurricane than evacuate again,” said Christina Lilley, 25, Dolloff’s daughter.

Kenny Holmes, a refinery maintenance worker from Port Arthur, had checked into a North Texas motel with his wife for Gustav. This time he was at a Dallas shelter, unable to afford the same luxury for Ike.

“I had to borrow money and use my bill money,” said Holmes, 45.

Many coastal counties appeared mostly satisfied with the compliance of mandatory evacuation orders. Beaumont saw about half of its 114,000 residents split town after the city had been mostly cleared out for Gustav.

Beaumont residents were warned that remaining in their homes could mean being without essential services for a significant period of time, police spokeswoman Crystal Holmes said.

“We’ve made it very clear: If you stay, you stay at your own risk,” she said.

Brazoria County has been able to evacuate about 70 percent of the approximately 14,000 residents near the coast, including the cities of Freeport, Clute and Surfside Beach, according to county officials.

About 50 percent of 280,000 or so residents in the other part of the county under an evacuation order—all communities except Pearland and Alvin—also have been evacuated, officials said.