Dolly Has South Texas in Its Sights

By Oren Dorell

Tropical Storm Dolly headed toward Texas today as forecasters predicted it would be the first Atlantic hurricane to hit the USA this year.

The National Hurricane Center said Dolly will hit the southern Texas coast Wednesday as a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest of five hurricane classifications, with maximum winds of 95 mph.

“This is going to be a horrific rainmaker,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the Miami-based center. “This could be a very significant … flooding event.”

Dolly, which would be the first tropical storm to make landfall in the USA this year, could dump 5 to 18 inches of rain on parts of South Texas and northeastern Mexico, according to center predictions.

The storm tore across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with 50-mph winds and into the Gulf of Mexico on Monday. As it hits the 85-degree waters of the Gulf, it will gain strength and definition, acting “like a giant chimney” before making landfall, Feltgen said.

Another tropical storm, Cristobal, was 360 miles off the North Carolina coast, traveling toward Nova Scotia, according to the hurricane center. That storm is expected to lose tropical storm force by Wednesday without making landfall — but such forecasts can be problematic. Feltgen warned that the power of a storm is less predictable than its track.

Forecasters said Dolly will come ashore at Brownsville, Texas.

Hurricane Bertha earlier this month jumped unexpectedly from a Category 1 to a Category 3 in 24 hours. Hurricane Humberto, which hit the Texas-Louisiana coast in September, “hardly existed early in the day, and later that night, we had a Category 1 hurricane coming across the coast,” Feltgen said.

The center issued a hurricane warning from Port O’Connor, Texas, to Brownsville.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry told 1,200 National Guard troops, two search-and-rescue task forces and three incident command teams to prepare for Dolly.

The task forces are trained in swift-water rescues and the National Guard troops, stationed in San Antonio, Austin and Dallas, have helicopters that can help in search-and-rescue operations, Perry spokeswoman Krista Piferrer said.

Despite a long-running drought and wildfires that burned more than a million acres this season, Dolly is unwelcome, Piferrer said.

“Hurricanes can bring destruction, and that’s not the form of rain we need in Texas,” she said.

Shell Oil announced it was evacuating 185 workers from some of its Gulf rigs.

Some Texas residents were also taking precautions.

At the Home Depot in Brownsville, shoppers were loading up on plywood, nails, tape, bottled water and generators, sales associate Pearla Cortines said.

Peggy Miller, 40, who manages two RV parks in Port Mansfield, north of Brownsville, said workers for the Willacy County Navigation District were driving around picking up debris that could become missiles in high winds.

And some of her 35 tenants were pulling stakes and leaving. Others — mostly seniors who are full-time residents with no family in the area — were staying put.

“Some of them are going to grin and bear it because that’s all they have,” Miller said. “I’ve got two (RV) parks to take care of so I’ll be staying as long as I can.” (c) Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.