Jul 22, 2008 4:00 pm US/Pacific
Dolly Gains Hurricane Strength As It Nears Texas
Officials Fear Storm May Breach Rio Grande Levees
National Guard Troops At Work In Several Cities
McALLEN, Texas (CBS News) ―
Dolly spun into a hurricane Tuesday, heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border and the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley, where officials feared heavy rains could cause massive flooding and levee breaks.
Dolly was upgraded from a tropical storm Tuesday afternoon, and sustained winds later reached about 80 mph. Some strengthening of the Category 1 storm was forecast before landfall Wednesday. At 11 p.m. EDT, the storm's center was about 110 miles east-southeast of Brownsville, moving northwest at about 9 mph.
A hurricane warning is in effect for the coast of Texas from Brownsville to Corpus Christi and in Mexico from Rio San Fernando northward.
At local stores there's a run on plywood to protect windows, but as CBS Early Show weather anchor Dave Price reports, Dolly's most serious threat is water, not wind.
In Mexico, Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez said officials are planning to evacuate 23,000 people to government shelters in Matamoros, Soto La Marina and San Fernando.
Texas officials urged residents to move away from the Rio Grande 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.
The first bands of rain began to pass over South Padre Island and Reynosa, Mexico Tuesday afternoon and the surf continued to get rougher. Forecasters predicted Dolly would dump 15 to 20 inches of rain and bring coastal storm surge flooding of 4 to 6 feet above normal high tide levels.
Tropical storm warnings were issued for areas adjacent to the hurricane zone, and Gov. Rick Perry declared 14 South Texas counties disasters, allowing state resources to be used to send equipment and emergency workers to areas in the storm's path.
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."
Around Brownsville, levees protect the historical downtown as well as preserved buildings that were formerly part of Fort Brown on the University of Texas at Brownsville campus. Outside the city, agricultural land dominates the banks of the Rio Grande, but thousands of people live in low-lying colonias, often poor subdivisions built without water and sewer utilities.
The International Boundary and Water Commission, which operates a series of levees, dams and floodways in the lower Rio Grande Valley, put its personnel on standby alert.
Much of the damage to New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina was from levee breaks instead of wind. In one of several breaches, a levee broke in June in Winfield, Missouri, allowing the Mississippi River to flood more than 100 homes.
Lines grew at centers giving out sandbags in the Rio Grande Valley. In Brownsville, a utility began draining its resacas - ponds and lakes formed by old bends in the Rio Grande - last week to prepare for rain.
In neighboring inland Hidalgo County, officials put out a call for volunteers to man five shelters that it planned to open for residents fleeing coastal counties.
The Navy began flying 104 of its aircraft out of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi to bases inland, said air station spokesman Bob Torres. Other aircraft will be sheltered on base in hangars and no evacuation was planned.
Maj. Jose Rivera of the Texas Army National Guard said troops were preparing at armories in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, after Gov. Rick Perry called up 1,200 Guard members to help.
In Harlingen, CBS affiliate station KGBT reported that some stores were already seeing Dolly clear the shelves of basic necessities. In one store, the water aisle was running on empty as people swept through and filled their carts. Steve Cody filled his to the top with water.
"You never know what's going to happen," Cody told KGBT.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement was evacuating its Port Isabel Detention Center, said spokeswoman Nina Pruneda.
In the Gulf of Mexico, Shell Oil evacuated workers from oil rigs, but said it didn't expect production to be affected. It also secured wells and shut down production in the Rio Grande Valley, where it primarily deals in natural gas.
Residents of northern Mexico were taking the impending storm in stride.
Blas Garica, a 62-year-old builder in Reynosa, was taping up his windows and putting sandbags in front of his porch to prepare.
"I'm not afraid because we flood frequently around here. If my house floods, we'll just run to the roof."
In Reynosa, restaurants, businesses and maquilas, the import-export plants along the border, were also getting sandbags ready.
"What we're most worried about is the water," said Ramon Del Alto, a restaurant manager. But Mexican authorities did not express concern over the levees.
On South Padre Island, vacationers packed up their camps and headed for the mainland.
About 40 children and staff at a summer camp were heading north to San Antonio.
"We're not taking any chances with these kids," said Rabbi Asher Hecht, director of the Lubavitch Camp Gan Israel.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
