In the wake of the mighty hurricane Ike, which had its landfall in the wee hours of 13 September, knocking out power transmission throughout the oil producing state of Texas, Americans have united in their endeavour to restore power to parts of the Lone Star State.

Hurricane Ike landed near Galveston Island on the Texas coast, around 50 miles (80 kilometres) south-east of Houston, and united the country in a combined effort to put the island back on its feet - something the state administrative machinery in India can learn from.

Crews from 31 states homed in on Texas to restore what is the largest power failure in the Lone Star State's history.

Georgia Power has announced that it will send 700 reinforcements to help restore power to parts of Texas that were ravaged by Hurricane Ike. These include line crews, engineers and security personnel, who will head to the worst effected areas of Houston and Beaumont, where around 2 million people are without electricity.

Georgia Power crews have been asked to pack for two weeks. At the height of Hurricane Ike, over 3 million people were without power. Georgia Power officials have been in almost constant touch with counterparts at Entergy and CenterPoint Energy to determine the best course of action.

Power companies across the south-east are rapidly mobilising their resources to bring down this number as fast as possible, even as they put out advisories saying that some people could expect to be without power for days, even weeks.

Uniting their forces, crews from power companies are working under a mutual assistance programme called the South-east Electric Exchange.

The American Red Cross has tapped into its Atlanta operations for assistance, with half a dozen more volunteers despatched to Texas over the weekend to help with disaster assessment, for a three week programme.

American Red Cross volunteers are from the Atlanta-area already deployed in Texas aid victims of the hurricane by helping with shelter, food and distribution of supplies.

Around four million homes and business along the eastern seaboard of the US, from Texas up to New York, lost power as a result of Hurricane Ike. The bulk of the impact has been borne by Texas, with at a South-east Texas power plant, among other facilities, being knocked out of action for weeks on account of flooding.

The Sabine Power Station in Bridge City, near the Louisiana border, was inundated with four feet of water, and has become home to snakes and other wild animals, according to a statement by Entergy Corporation. The 1,800-megawatt Bridge City plant runs on natural gas, and the company said it was yet to assess damage at the plant.

Entergy also said that choppers flew sorties over transmission lines along a damaged Texas power grid. CenterPoint Energy Inc, the biggest utility in Houston, said it had 10,000 workers scrambling to restore service.

The US Department of Energy said that at the height of outages on Monday, as many as 3.8 million customers lacked power in a nine-state swath from Texas to New York.

According to a statement by the US department of Energy, the Ike storm system moved north, causing outages in states throughout the Ohio Valley and into the North-east, ultimately hitting nine states.