HOUSTON (Aug. 17) - The tropical weather season revved up Thursday as
the Atlantic's first hurricane formed and quickly strengthened, and
as Tropical Storm Erin's remnants soaked rain-weary Texas, snarling
rush-hour traffic and killing at least two people.
Even as they fetched dozens of stranded drivers, authorities in
Houston and San Antonio looked over their shoulders at Hurricane
Dean, a Category 2 storm building in the Atlantic as it neared
islands in the eastern Caribbean. Hurricane warnings were issued
for some islands, and a tropical storm warning was issued for the
U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
The thunderstorms from Erin brought 7 inches of rain to parts of
San Antonio and Houston, where one person died and another was
injured when the waterlogged roof of a storage unit outside a
grocery store collapsed, Fire Chief Omero Longoria said. The
National Hurricane Center said 10 inches of rain was possible in
some areas.
In San Antonio, a man was swept away after apparently getting
out of his vehicle in floodwater, a police spokeswoman said. Three
people died in a head-on collision on a rainy highway in Comal
County, but Department of Public Safety Trooper Rick Alvarez said
the cause of the crash was still under investigation.
The flooding "has been a good training session, if you will,"
as officials track Dean's progress, said Harris County Judge Ed
Emmett, the top elected official in the county that surrounds
Houston.
More rain was moving in Thursday from the Gulf - 3 to 6 inches
was forecast for Thursday night - which authorities found
particularly worrisome because the ground was saturated.
"It's like a wet sponge," Emmett said.
Summer storms have poured record rainfall across Texas and parts
of Oklahoma and Kansas, with floods killing at least 18 people
since mid-June. One July storm dropped 17 inches of rain in 24
hours and brought Texas out of a more than decade-long drought.
The dangers of a slow-moving storm system are well known in
Houston, where Tropical Storm Allison stalled for several days in
2001, soaking the flat, low-lying city. After passing Houston, it
returned, dumping about 20 inches of rain in eight hours. About two
dozen people died, most of the city was without power and entire
neighborhoods were destroyed.
Still, state and local officials said Erin was a relatively calm
rehearsal for the hurricane season.
"It was a good dry run. I hope it stays dry," Corpus Christi
Mayor Henry Garrett said after Erin had moved ashore as a tropical
depression and largely spared the Gulf Coast city.
In the Atlantic, Dean's top sustained winds at 2 a.m. EDT Friday
were 100 mph, up from 75 mph earlier in the day. It was a Category
2 storm and centered about 85 miles east-southeast of Martinique
and about 90 miles northeast of Barbados. It was moving west at
around 25 mph, and its center should approach the Lesser Antilles
on Friday.
"It's so far out, but it's not too early to start preparing,"
said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
"We have more notice than with Erin. We're glad for that
especially since (Dean) is projected to bring some strength."
Houston-based Transocean Inc., which operates the largest
deepwater drilling rig fleet in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico,
said Thursday it had evacuated 11 nonessential workers late
Wednesday as a precaution. About 125 people remain on board the
moored, semisubmersible rig about 160 miles southeast of New
Orleans.
Shell Oil Co. evacuated 188 people this week from offshore
facilities in Erin's path and said Thursday it was already
monitoring Dean.
The Caribbean islands of Dominica and St. Lucia issued hurricane
warnings as Dean approached. Hurricane watches were issued for
Martinique and Guadeloupe and its dependencies. About 2 to 5 inches
of rain was expected, with mountainous areas getting up to 7
inches.
Tropical storm warnings were issued for Anguilla, Antigua;
Barbados; Barbuda; Grenada and its dependencies; Monserrat; Nevis;
Saba; St. Eustatius; St. Kitts; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and
St. Maarten. A tropical storm watch was issued for part of the
southern coast of the Dominican Republic. A warning means storm
conditions are expected within 24 hours, a watch means 36 hours.
Hurricane specialists expect this year's Atlantic hurricane
season - June 1 to Nov. 30 - to be busier than average, with as
many as 16 tropical storms, nine of them strengthening into
hurricanes. Ten tropical storms developed in the Atlantic last
year, but only two made landfall in the United States.
Associated Press writers Elizabeth White in Corpus Christi and
Monica Rhor in Houston contributed to this report.
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