NWS now is predicting near-hurricane force winds up as far as Palestine, TX - about 200 miles or so from the coast. Dropping off rapidly north of that.
This looks exceptionally disorganized and a huge wind field. The big wind danger is in tight smaller storms. Think of an ice skater in a spin. As the skater pulls in tight they spin faster. Same with hurricanes. Charley was pretty tame until it got tight then we got over 192 MPH.
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~stevenb/hurr/04/charley/CHARLEY_124.n16.04aug13_1910.png
Notice how tight and perfect the eye and general symmetry is.
It moved fast and got tight and just a few hundred meters outside the pink cones produced no damage. Big anti-surge - all the water was sucked out to sea.
http://www.swfrpc.org/content/GIS/images/charley.pdf
The big danger in a storm like Ike is when they are slow and this one is slow. The surge is determined by bottom conditions and DURATION and direction of the wind. Looks like at 11 MPH the eastern quadrant could get some surge where the bottom comes up on a modest slope.
There of course is always flash flood damage from rain. I can tell you from FL Ike is a wet one.
In a place that had recent winds or good codes (i.e. most of FL) there should not be too much wind damage beyond power lines.
