Texas Gulf Coast Colleges Prepare for Monster Hurricane

By Katherine Mangan

Austin, Tex.

Students from more than a dozen colleges and universities along the Texas Gulf Coast and into western Louisiana joined a mass evacuation inland as Hurricane Ike swirled and strengthened in a path that could take it ashore as a major storm late tonight or early Saturday.

As the projected path shifted north, Houston college officials who had thought they were in the clear on Wednesday began making preparations to close or hunker down with their students in secure buildings,