Texas governor calls on Trump to declare disaster as hurricane threatens huge floods
TEXAS GOVERNOR Greg Abbott has warned that Hurricane Harvey “is going to be a very major disaster”.
Mr Abbott said yesterday he had asked President Donald Trump for a federal disaster declaration.
Harvey was forecast to make landfall in Texas late yesterday or early today as a category three storm. Aside from savage winds and storm surges, the system was expected to drop prodigious amounts of rain.
The resulting flooding, one expert said, could be “the depths of which we’ve never seen”.
The National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said Hurricane Harvey has strengthened with maximum sustained winds of 110mph, just short of the benchmark for a Category 3 storm. Forecasters said Harvey is expected to reach that mark before making landfall late last night or early today, local time.
The slow-moving hurricane could be the fiercest storm to hit the US in almost a dozen years, with the potential for winds hitting 125mph and storm surges of 12ft. The last Category 3 storm to hit the US was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 in Florida.
“We’re forecasting continuing intensification right up until landfall,” NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island have ordered mandatory evacuations of tens of thousands of residents all low-lying areas.
In four of those counties, officials ordered their entire county evacuated and warned those who stayed behind that no one could be guaranteed rescue.
Voluntary evacuations have been urged in areas where many homes were washed away by Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Texas officials fear that many people are not heeding advice and have urged residents to evacuate as quickly as possible. from