Harvey slams Texas coast

Associated Press

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas

Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas late Friday, lashing a wide swath of the Gulf Coast with strong winds and torrential rain from the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade.

The National Hurricane Center said the eye of the Category 4 hurricane made landfall about 10 p.m. about 30 miles northeast of Corpus Christi between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, bringing with it 130 mph sustained winds and flooding rains.

Harvey’s approach sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing the Gulf Coast, hoping to escape the wrath of an increasingly menacing storm set to slam an area of Texas that includes oil refineries, chemical plants and dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned that the monster system would be “a very major disaster,” and the predictions drew fearful comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest ever to strike the U.S.

“We know that we’ve got millions of people who are going to feel the impact of this storm,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman and meteorologist for the National Hurricane Center. “We really pray that people are listening to their emergency managers and get out of harm’s way.”

As night fell, punishing winds already had begun to cause damage in downtown Corpus Christi, the city closest to the center of the storm. A trash can lid skipped across a parking lot behind hotels on the seawall. In the city of 325,000 residents, a traffic light post was toppled but still lit, its wires unearthed.

Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, Harvey grew rapidly, accelerating from a Category 1 early Friday morning to a Category 4 by evening. Its transformation from an unnamed storm to a life-threatening behemoth took only 56 hours, an incredibly fast intensification.

Harvey came ashore as the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in 13 years and the strongest to strike Texas since 1961’s Hurricane Carla, the most powerful Texas hurricane on record. Based on the atmospheric pressure, Harvey ties for the 18th strongest hurricane on landfall in the U.S. since 1851 and ninth strongest in Texas.

Aside from the winds of 130 mph and storm surges up to 12 feet, Harvey was expected to drop prodigious amounts of rain – up to 3 feet. The resulting flooding, one expert said, could be “the depths of which we’ve never seen.”

At least one researcher predicted heavy damage that would linger for months or longer.

“In terms of economic impact, Harvey will probably be on par with Hurricane Katrina,” said University of Miami senior hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. “The Houston area and Corpus Christi are going to be a mess for a long time.”

Before the storm arrived, home and business owners raced to nail plywood over windows and fill sandbags. Steady traffic filled the highways leaving Corpus Christi, but there were no apparent jams. In Houston, where mass evacuations can include changing major highways to a one-way vehicle flow, authorities left traffic patterns unchanged.

Federal health officials called in more than 400 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals from around the nation and planned to move two 250-bed medical units to Baton Rouge, La. Other federal medical units are available in Dallas.

Just hours before the projected landfall, the governor and Houston leaders issued conflicting statements on evacuation.

After Abbott urged more people to flee, Houston authorities told people to remain in their homes and recommended no widespread evacuations.

In a Friday press conference that addressed Houston officials’ decision to not have a voluntary or mandatory evacuation, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said there might be a “greater danger” in having people who don’t need to be evacuated on roads that could flood.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said that because the hurricane was not taking direct aim at Houston, the city’s primary concern was heavy flooding.

“We are not having a hurricane,” said Emmett, the top elected official for the county, which encompasses Houston. “We are having a rain event.”

At a convenience store in Houston’s Meyerland neighborhood, at least 12 cars lined up for fuel. Brent Borgstedte said this was the fourth gas station he had visited to try to fill up his son’s car. The 55-year-old insurance agent shrugged off Harvey’s risks.

“I don’t think anybody is really that worried about it. I’ve lived here my whole life,” he said. “I’ve been through several hurricanes.”

Scientists warned that Harvey could swamp counties more than 100 miles inland and stir up dangerous surf as far away as Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, 700 miles from the projected landfall.