hurricane in the gulf...could be v.interesting

Residents of Texas and Mexico are preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Dolly. Here, Pedro Dominguez on Monday finishes up mounting plywood over the windows of his Brownsville, Texas, home.



THE 2008 HURRICANE SEASON

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Hurricane high-risk areas have lost residents



McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Coastal officials worried Tuesday that Hurricane Dolly may bring so much rain that flooding could break through the levees holding back the Rio Grande.
Officials urged residents to move away from the levees because if Dolly continues to follow the same path as 1967's Hurricane Beulah, "the levees are not going to hold that much water," said Cameron County Emergency Management Coordinator Johnny Cavazos.


Forecasters say Dolly was expected to dump 15 inches to 20 inches of rain and bring coastal storm surge flooding of more than 4 feet above normal high tide levels.


Hurricane warnings were in effect from Brownsville north to Corpus Christi, and in Mexico, from Rio San Fernando north to the U.S. border. Tropical storm warnings were issued for surrounding areas and the Texas governor has declared 14 counties disaster areas, allowing state resources to be used to send equipment and emergency workers needed to the areas in the storm's path.

Forecasters said Dolly was expected to make land late Tuesday or early Wednesday as a hurricane with sustained winds of 74 mph to 95 mph.

The storm combined with levees that have deteriorated in the 41 years since Beulah swept up the Rio Grande pose a major flooding threat to low-lying counties along the border. Beulah spawned more than 100 tornadoes across Texas and dumped 36 inches of rain in some parts of South Texas, killing 58 people and causing more than $1 billion damage.

"We could have a triple-decker problem here," Cavazos told a meeting of more than 100 county and local officials Tuesday. "We believe that those (levees) will be breached if it continues on the same track. So please stay away from those levees."

Much of the damage to New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was from levee breaks instead of wind. Levee breaches in the Midwest made river flooding far more damaging than it would have been earlier this summer.

People in the warning areas have little time left to complete their preparations, National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

"They need to get that done like now. Weather conditions will be deteriorating rapidly later this (Tuesday) afternoon and tonight," he said.

Lines grew at centers giving out sandbags in the Rio Grande Valley.



Maj. Jose Rivera of the Texas Army National Guard said troops were preparing at armories in Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Gov. Rick Perry called up 1,200 troops to help and issued the disaster declaration in the South Texas counties.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Shell Oil evacuated workers from oil rigs, but said it didn't expect its production to be affected by the storm.

Other areas are bracing for at least a tropical storm with warnings issued from Port O'Connor to San Luis Pass, south of Galveston in Texas and from La Pesca to Rio San Fernando in Mexico.

Mexican border towns near the Gulf coast were setting up shelters and soldiers were also being sent into Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, to protect against looting.

Other parts of Texas, stricken by drought, watched Dolly expectantly, with as much as 4 inches of rain forecast to fall by the time the storm's eastern edge sweeps across the region, said Texas A&M University's John Nielsen-Gammon, the state's climatologist.