Posts Tagged ‘hurricane alex 2010’

Hurricane Alex Began Dumping Rain On Southern Texas

Hurricane Alex threw the rain in the Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday, but residents and officials began to relax as the Category 1 storm brought down the deep south of the US-Mexican border.

Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos said Wednesday that Brownsville and surrounding areas “dodged a potentially violent storm. But the flooding is still concerned with Alex is expected to make landfall later than Wednesday.

Mexico was supposed to take a hit Alex, but forecasters said some parts of the deep south Texas can get at least 15 inches of rain.

At least 70 residents have already taken shelter in the Brownsville High School. Government officials say they can close the dam in South Padre Island, if conditions were bad enough.

Governor Rick Perry said that his greatest concern from Hurricane Alex floods, but he promised the government is ready to storm this summer, as well as any impact from the spill of the Persian Gulf.

Engineers monitor the dam in south Texas as the storm approaches the area. If a hurricane hit the Gulf Coast states, barrier islands would protect the wetlands from serious injuries, said the land commissioner Jerry Patterson.

Perry and Patterson spoke with reporters Wednesday at a warehouse equipped with emergency response equipment in La Porte, a suburb of Houston on Galveston Bay.

“Experience has taught us to pray for the best and prepare for the worst,” said Perry. “We are ready to cope with the storm and its consequences.”

The state has five stores along the Gulf Coast are equipped with a boom, portable trailer command center, shallow boats, four-wheel-drive small cars and other goods. The state sent a significant portion of its stock boom in Louisiana, but the manufacturers are doing more now, says Patterson.

Researchers are also monitoring buoy system, which records the Gulf water direction and speed every half hour. This information will determine where the oil could spread if it approaches Texas, as tar balls on the beach, Patterson said.

“We practiced and practiced and tested our plans,” he said.

Hurricane Alex Churns Toward Mexico

Matamoros, Mexico – the first hurricane of the Atlantic, the heads for a confrontation with the Mexican Gulf coast and pouring from the flood-prone southern Texas. Officials to evacuate thousands of people from fishing villages.

Hurricane Alex hit the Mexico and southern Texas Wednesday, flooding roads and forcing thousands of people evacuated from fishing villages.

The storm was far from cleaning oil spills, but the excitement of pushing more oil on the coast of the Gulf beaches and clear the vessels on the side of the ripple effect of the hurricane.

Alex winds 80 miles per hour (130 km / h), according to the National Hurricane Center, and this was the first hurricane of June in the Atlantic Ocean since 1995, said the center.

Groups of heavy rain quickly flooded roads Wednesday in the Mexican city of Matamoros border troubling Alex is expected to dump as much as 12 inches (30 cm) of rain in the region, perhaps 20 inches (50 centimeters) in remote areas.

The hurricane could become a Category 2 storm with winds 96 miles per hour (154 kph) before slamming into the coast on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas. Flat, marshy region is prone to flooding.

Many in the border town, despite the increasing rain: Mast tried to get to work, pedestrians have crossed the bridge linking Matamoros and Brownsville and newsboy Manned less flooded intersections.

Matamoros Civil Protection Director Saul Hernandez said officials will begin to evacuate about 2,500 people from coastal areas in the eastern part of the city on Wednesday morning. But Hernandez said he was very concerned about the 13,000 families in low-lying areas on the outskirts of the city, where there are several utilities and urban services.

One of the flooding of the road almost all Mari Ponce to get to their work in El Mundo housing, which is preparing for 800 people evacuated from fishing communities along the coast.

“It does not strike us (directly), but Matamoros is a place that really floods,” she said.

Government workers are stuck with duct tape in the X through the windows in the immigration service at the main bridge in the city of Matamoros on Tuesday. Truck slowly cruising residential streets with large jugs of drinking water and cars packed supermarket parking lot.

Texas also watched Alex’s outer bands carefully. Alex is expected to bring torrential rains in the delta of the Rio Grande region, which is ill-suited – economically and geographically – to cope with this.

Texas residents were preparing for the storm for several days, preparing their homes and businesses and harvesting on household necessities.

In Cameron County, one of the poorest areas of the United States and the southernmost point of Texas, Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada said he would wait to extraordinary statement of their city – especially because the city is cash strapped, and he does not want to start paying the city more working until absolutely necessary.

On the territory of South Padre Island, the mood was less alarming. Although hotels and restaurants looked deserted compared to the lack of space tourists, who usually pack a popular holiday destination during the summer, those who stuck around did not size up to Alex, how much of a threat.

One couple renewed their wedding vows on the beach, a few guests roared their trailers – reluctantly – from the park hours before the date of mandatory evacuation.

“It’s June. Too early to hurricanes,” said Gloria Santos, in Edinburgh, after her funny trailer to his truck.

Jerry Wilson, 50, also did not like Alex, although he fought in fierce gusts raise tissue tipped pole to clean high-mounted cameras across the island, which enables viewers to watch the arrival Alexa Internet broadcasts.

“We have two generators and a lot of weapons and ammunition, so we’re not worried about it,” said Wilson.

National Weather Service said a hurricane warning in effect Tuesday for Cameron, Willacy and Kenedy counties. Coastal warnings are covered Baffin Bay and 100 miles south of the mouth of the Rio Grande.

Oil rigs and platforms in the way of the outer storm bands were evacuated, and President Barack Obama issued a pre-emptive federal disaster declaration for the southern counties of Texas Tuesday evening.

3 drilling rigs and platforms evacuated 28 does not form part of oil spill response Persian Gulf.

As of 10 am CDT environment (1700 GMT), Alex 190 miles (310 kilometers) southeast of Brownsville moving west-northwest near 7 miles per hour (11 km / h).