My g/f lives and works in Huntsville, TX - about an hour north of Houston - and therefore Ike had already weakened some. That weakened stage still knocked out her power for several days - and kept the university she worked at closed for about a week (to both students and employees).
She just sent me two links to see some of the campus after Ike passed through and I thought you'd like to see just what Ike can do to some pretty big trees:
http://www.shsu.edu/~pin_www/IkePictures.html
http://www.shsu.edu/~pin_www/IkeMuseumPics.html