Hurricane Hanna hits Texas
Hurricane Hanna, the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season made landfall doubly a good Category 1 storm on Saturday afternoon within the span of little over an hour in Texas.
The first landfall happened at around 5pm about 24 kilometers north of Port Mansfield, which is approximately 209km south of Corpus Christi. The next landfall took place local in eastern Kenedy County, reports AP.
Hanna had arrive ashore with optimum sustained winds of 145 kph. By Saturday night, those winds possessed weakened to 120 kph.
Many elements of Texas, including areas near where Hanna came ashore, have been working with a surge on coronavirus cases on recent weeks, but local officials said they were fully prepared for the storm.
Chris Birchfield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, said residents had a need to remain alert. While Hanna's winds were expected to weaken throughout Saturday night, the storm’s real threat remained heavy rainfall, he stated.
“We’re not even near over at this aspect. We’re still expecting catastrophic flooding,” Birchfield said.
Forecasters said Hanna could bring 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of rain through Sunday night - with isolated totals of 18 inches (46 centimeters) - in addition to coastal swells that might lead to life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
Some areas in South Texas had reported acquiring up to 23 centimeters. Rainfall totals were expected to rise through the entire evening and into Sunday. “It’s been all day,” Melissa Elizardi, a spokeswoman for Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño, said of the rainfall.
In a tweet, President Donald Trump said his administration was monitoring Hanna, along with Hurricane Douglas, which was heading toward Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
Hanna came nearly 3 years after Hurricane Harvey made landfall northeast of Corpus Christi. Hanna was not expected to end up being as destructive as Harvey, which killed 68 people and caused an estimated $125 billion in harm in Texas.
First responders on Corpus Christi proactively positioned barricades close to intersections to have them all set if streets started out to flood, Mayor Joe McComb said. More than 43,700 people throughout South Texas, incorporating Corpus Christi, Harlingen and Brownsville, were without electricity Saturday evening, relating to AEP Texas.
Corpus Christi is found in Nueces County, where health officials made headlines when they revealed that 60 infants tested positive for COVID-19 from July 1 to July 16.
Farther south on Cameron County, a lot more than 300 confirmed different cases have been reported daily for the past fourteen days, according to convey health figures. Days gone by week has also been the county’s deadliest of the pandemic.
Coastal states scrambled this spring to adapt emergency hurricane plans to account for the virus, and Hanna loomed as the first big test.
South Texas officials’ plans for just about any possible rescues, shelters and monitoring of the storm could have the pandemic at heart and incorporate social distancing guidelines and mask wearing.
Gov. Greg Abbott stated Saturday that some sheltering would happen in resort rooms so people could be separated.
“We can not allow this hurricane to bring about a far more catastrophically deadly event by stoking additional spread of COVID-19 that could bring about fatalities," Abbott said.
Cameron County planned to open at least three evacuation shelters. Other counties and cities throughout South Texas possessed also opened up shelters, with many needing face masks.
Various resources and personnel to react to the storm were about standby over the state, including search-and-rescue teams and aircraft. Mobile teams that can continue examining for COVID-19 were likewise being deployed.
Abbott said he has issued a tragedy declaration for 32 counties in Texas and had asked the federal government to approve an identical declaration.
Tornadoes were also possible overnight Saturday for parts of the lower to middle Texas coastal plain, forecasters said. A hurricane caution was in place for Port Mansfield to Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, and a tropical storm warning was in place from Port Mansfield south to Barra el Mezquital, Mexico, and from Baffin Bay no
