Emergency teams were activated as residents along the Gulf of Mexico prepared to get hit with another round of tropical weather for the second time in less than a month.
Tropical Storm Edouard gained speed as it moved west yesterday and was expected to strengthen to a near-hurricane before making landfall somewhere in Texas or southwest Louisiana this morning.
A tropical storm warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River westward to Cameron, Louisiana. A hurricane watch was in effect from west of Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to Port O’Connor, Texas.
Edouard had maximum sustained winds near 80kph with higher gusts yesterday.
Forecasters said the warm waters of the Gulf provided the right conditions for the storm to intensify and approach hurricane strength with winds of 120kph or more.
Southeastern Texans prepared for Edouard’s impact while the victims farther down the Texas coast continued cleaning up the damage from Hurricane Dolly, which hit last month.
Krista Piferrer, a spokeswoman for Texas Governor Rick Perry, said on Sunday that state emergency management officials were getting updates through conference calls with the National Weather Service.
Texas began activating a number of emergency teams on Sunday afternoon, including calling up 1,200 Texas military forces and six UH-60 helicopters, the State Operations Center said.
The Texas Forest Service and the Texas Engineering and Extension Service activated response teams.
In Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish, emergency director Jerry Richard said he had called in staff members to determine if the parish’s low-lying areas could be affected by flooding.
Many of the Gulf’s offshore oil and natural gas drilling platforms sit in the storm’s path.
Shell Oil Co officials were watching the storm closely, spokesman Shawn Wiggins said.
ExxonMobil Corp was preparing its platforms for heavy wind and rain and considering whether to evacuate some workers, spokeswoman Margaret Ross said in an e-mail statement on Sunday.
The six-month hurricane season, which began on June 1, has already seen two of its four storms strengthen into hurricanes. Last month was the third most active month of July for storms since Atlantic hurricane season records began in 1851.
The early and unusually vigorous storm activity has given storm experts reason to believe that predictions for an above average season could turn out to be accurate.
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