CORPUS CHRISTI (USA Today, Aug 25,2017): — Hurricane Harvey, taking dead aim on the Texas Gulf coast, strengthened to a Category 3 storm Friday only hours before it was set to roar ashore and unleash life-threatening high winds, flash flooding, storm surges and up to three feet of rain.
“This is going to be a very major disaster,” said Gov. Gregg Abbott, who declared a State of Disaster for 30 counties and requested 700 National Guard members to be activated.
He warned of record-setting flooding in multiple regions of the state and urged people to get out of harm’s way. “You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you could be subject to a search and rescue.”
Some forecasts are calling for as much as a mind-boggling 60 inches (that’s five feet) of rain from Harvey.
As many as 1.25 million Texans could lose power from the storm, according to forecast models at Texas A&M University.
With some 700,000 people living in the hurricane warning zone — roughly half of them around Corpus Christi — traffic backups tied up heavily traveled roads such as Interstate 37 as people move toward San Antonio and other inland locations.