Disaster Recovery News

Hurricane Ike is expected to reach Texas early Saturday morning at a category 4 strength, experts have just announced. Mandatory evacuations are now being ordered all along the Texas Gulf Coast in order to reduce the number of potential casualties. Currently Ike is a Category 2 hurricane.
Roughly 15,000 people are being asked to leave Brazoria County in Texas though many are deciding to stay and wait out the storm. For more on mandatory evacuations in the area, please visit http://www.click2houston.com/news/4995385/detail.html

“One of the things that the public has to understand if they decide to stay, there will be a period of time during this storm when they will absolutely be on their own,” Brazoria County Sheriff Charles Wagner said to the press today.

President Bush has already declared an emergency in Texas so that preparation funds could begin to enter the state. The area around Galveston City and Corpus Christi are being told that flooding is likely under the current storm predictions.

Read more

A second Disaster Recovery Center has opened in Sebastian, Texas to help residents of Willacy County with the recovery and rebuilding of the area after Hurricane Dolly. The additional center will be located in the IRRA Community Building. There are a total of six such centers open to homeowners and businesses in Texas as part of the federal assistance provided after the storm hit the southern coast in July.

The Disaster Recovery Centers provide individuals that have suffered from a major disaster, like Hurricane Dolly, with access to FEMA staff, federal and state agencies, volunteer organizations and disaster recovery specialists who are able to help residents through the process of assessing disaster damage, applying for disaster assistance and recovering from the devastation done to their home and belongings.

For more on Hurricane Dolly disaster relief, visit http://www.fema.gov/news/event.fema?id=10347

Tropical Storm Edouard is being watched closely by weather experts and gulf coast residents as it builds in the Gulf of Mexico . The storm is expected to make landfall in Texas Thursday morning. Forecasters are warning however that the storm could create tornadoes before then.

Warnings are being issued along the Texas coast today as the storm picks up speed and builds wind speed. The warning covers the coastline from the Mississippi Delta south of New Orleans to Port O’Connor, Texas. A huricane watch is also in effect from west of Intracoastal City, Louisiana to Port O’Connor.

The storm is expected to drop 5 inches to 10 inches of rain when it hits landfall. Homes along the coast line in this area are starting to prepare for the potential hurricane and flood damage in what could be another major storm at the start of this hurricane season.

Read More

Hurricane Dolly hit Southern Texas today as a category 2 storm, pushing 100 mph winds and inches of rain into the coastline. Concerns about the potential for broken levees were eased slighty however, when Dolly’s winds eased down to a category 1 after hitting land.

“The levees are holding up just fine,” said Cameron County Emergency Management Coordinator Johnny Cavazos in an associated press report. “There is no indication right now that they are going to crest.”

The failure of levees and cresting rivers are what contributed to some of the worst flooding damage done in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina as well the recent June flooding in Iowa and Nebraska.

As of this afternoon, reports of roofs being blown off, power outages and some flooding in streets on South Padre Island have been reported.

Because the storm is still passing through southern Texas and Northern Mexico, the extent of the damage to home and business owners cannot be fully realized.