Jul 21, 2008 4:10 pm US/Pacific
Hurricane Watch Issued As Dolly Churns In The Gulf
Hurricane Watch Issued For Parts Of Texas, Mexico coasts
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) ―
A coastal county on the Texas-Mexico border was bracing Monday for 10 to 20 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Dolly, which could make landfall as a hurricane along the lower Texas Gulf Coast late Wednesday.
Although no mandatory evacuation was planned yet, emergency workers began to urge coastal residents to take caution.
Workers were also still deciding whether they could proceed as planned with beginning construction on the new border fence, which was to be combined with levee improvements along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami announced a hurricane watch from Brownsville north to Port O'Connor Monday morning. Mexico also announced a hurricane watch from Rio San Fernando north to Matamoros and the U.S. border.
At 1 p.m. CDT, the center of Tropical Storm Dolly was located about 475 miles east-southeast of the lower Rio Grande Valley. Mexico discontinued its tropical storm warning for the Yucatan Peninsula.
Dolly was moving toward the west-northwest at 18 mph. The storm is expected to gradually slow in the next couple days but stay on track. Maximum sustained winds remained at 50 mph but are expected to strengthen to hurricane force Tuesday.
The affected region, the Rio Grande Valley, has a population of close to 2 million. South Padre Island is a popular summer beach resort.
Shell Oil said that it had begun evacuating workers from its oil rigs in the western Gulf Of Mexico where Dolly re-entered after sliding across the Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
Cameron County, which is on the coast and includes South Padre Island, alerted workers to be ready to help residents evacuate flood-prone areas.
"That amount of rain will present a big flooding problem for us," said Cameron County Emergency Management Coordinator Johnny Cavazos.
Cavazos said officials will urge people to remove their RVs and other high-profile vehicles from county parks on the barrier island on Monday.
At a Brownsville Home Depot, Monday morning business was up about 25 percent as residents came in for plywood, generators, batteries and flashlights, said store operations manager John Paul Martinez.
Martinez said a lot of people seemed to just be learning of the storm's approach.
"We're expecting it to get a lot busier late this afternoon as people get out of work," he said.
Hidalgo County, adjoining Cameron inland along the border, began preparations to accept voluntary evacuees from the coast. Emergency managers don't plan to order an evacuation unless Dolly strengthens to a Category 3.
Dolly is expected to land as a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 74 mph to 95 mph.
The federal government was to begin this week constructing the first part of the new border fence in Hidalgo County, where local officials struck an agreement to combine the fence with improved levees along the Rio Grande.
While project supervisors were meeting with emergency managers about the storm, large cranes unloaded steel beams and other supplies at a staging area near the levee Monday morning. Concrete walls will be incorporated into the river side of the levees to keep floodwaters, illegal immigrants and smugglers out.
The county is also upgrading other levees and informed contractors Monday that they should activate their flood protection plan that restores the levees under construction to their pre-construction levels, said Godfrey Garza, head of Hidalgo County Drainage District 1.
County residents should be at no more risk of flooding than before work on the levees began, said Hidalgo County spokeswoman Cari Lambrecht.
The storm hit the storm-prone Yucatan peninsula with heavy rains and high winds, according to the U.S. National Weather Service in Miami, which also forecast downpours and winds in western Cuba.
The governor of Quintana Roo state, where Cancun and most of Mexico's Caribbean coast are located, ordered the evacuation of small, low-lying islands Banco Chinchorro and Punta Allen as a precautionary measure.
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