Hurricane “Alex” hits Texas

The first Atlantic hurricane of the year was heading toward a collision with the Mexican Gulf coast and south Texas on Wednesday, whipping up high waves that frustrated oil spill cleanup efforts.
Hurricane Alex flooded roads and forced thousands of people to evacuate from Mexican fishing villages and to change vacation plans in south eastern Texas. The storm was far from the Gulf oil spill, but cleanup vessels were sidelined by the hurricane's ripple effects.
Six-foot waves churned up by the hurricane splattered beaches in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida with oil and tar balls. Alex, which had winds of 90 miles per hour (150 kilometres per hour), was the first June hurricane in the Atlantic since 1995, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
The hurricane could become a Category 2 storm with winds of at least 96 miles per hour (154 kilometres per hour) before slamming into the coastline on Wednesday evening or early Thursday about 100 miles (160 kilometres) south of Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas, the Hurricane Center said. The flat, marshy region is prone to flooding. Texas watched Alex's outer bands warily. Texas residents had been preparing for the storm for days, readying their homes and businesses and stocking up on household essentials. But concerns eased as the storm headed farther south toward Mexico. Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos said Brownsville and surrounding areas had "dodged a potentially violent storm," though flooding was still a worry. Engineers were watching the levees in south Texas as the storm approached the area.
On nearby South Padre Island, the mood was less anxious. Although hotels and restaurants looked deserted compared to the crush of vacationers who normally pack the popular vacation spot in the summer, those who stuck around didn't rate Alex as much of a threat.
One vacationer drove from his home state of Georgia to escape the oil but found a hurricane in South Padre. It didn't stop him from jogging in the outer bands of Alex.
Scientists in Texas were also monitoring a buoy system that records the Gulf's water directions and velocity every half-hour. That information will determine where the oil could spread, should it approach Texas as tar balls on the beach, said Texas land commissioner Jerry Patterson.
Oil rigs and platforms in the path of the storm's outer bands were evacuated, and President Barack Obama issued a pre-emptive federal disaster declaration for southern Texas counties late on Tuesday. The three oil rigs and 28 platforms evacuated were not part of the Gulf oil spill response.
As of 1600 local time Wednesday (2100 GMT), Alex was 105 miles (170 kilometres) southeast of Brownsville and 80 miles (130 kilometres) from La Pesca, Mexico, moving west at about 13 miles per hour (20 kilometres per hour).