The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Harvey has strengthened to a Category 3 storm.
The centre says Harvey has maximum wind speeds of 130 mph (209 kph) as the powerful storm churns off the Texas coast. Forecasters are labeling it a ``life-threatening storm.''
The storm quickly grew Thursday from a tropical depression into a Category 1 hurricane, and then developed into a Category 2 storm early Friday. By Friday afternoon, it had become a Category 3 storm. It's forecast to make landfall in Texas late Friday or early Saturday.
The slow-moving storm is fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters. Forecasters are labeling it a ``life-threatening storm'' with landfall predicted late Friday or early Saturday between Port O'Connor and Matagorda Bay, a 30-mile (48-kilometre) stretch of coastline about 70 miles (110 kilometres) northeast of Corpus Christi.
Winds from #HurricaneHarvey rattle the shoreline of Corpus Christi as AP photographer Eric Gay awaits landfall. https://t.co/XjUrk6rBn4 pic.twitter.com/IMbcMsCt4B
— AP Central U.S. (@APCentralRegion) August 25, 2017
#GOES16 visible band showing well-defined eye of #Harvey with deep updrafts. pic.twitter.com/l6y3DAYhyJ
— NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) August 25, 2017
#Harvey will bring catastrophic & life-threatening storm surge & rainfall flooding, as well as strong winds to Texas https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/6r60zIIGmP
— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) August 25, 2017
All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island have ordered mandatory evacuations of tens of thousands of residents from all low-lying areas. Officials in four counties ordered full evacuations and warned there was no guarantee of rescue for people staying behind.
Voluntary evacuations have been urged for Corpus Christi and for the Bolivar Peninsula, a sand spit near Galveston where many homes were washed away by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has expressed concern that not as many people are evacuating compared with previous storms. He said Friday that there was still time for coastal residents to get out of Harvey’s path, but they must leave immediately.
The governor activated about 700 members of the state National Guard ahead of Harvey making landfall.
Harvey’s effect is expected to be broad: The hurricane center said large storm surges could be expected as far north as Morgan City, Louisiana, some 400 miles (644 kilometers) away from the anticipated landfall.
And once it comes ashore, the storm is expected to stall, dumping copious amounts of rain for days in areas like flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth most-populous city, and San Antonio.
Harvey’s heavy rain could turn many towns into “essentially islands” and leave them isolated for days, said Melissa Munguia, deputy emergency management coordinator for Nueces County.
State transportation officials were considering when to turn all evacuation routes from coastal areas into one-way traffic arteries headed inland — a process known as “contraflow.”
John Barton, a former deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, predicted state officials will do so before the storm hits. But if contraflow starts too early, supplies such as extra gasoline needed to support affected areas can’t get in, he said.
Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi was airlifting at least 10 critically ill infants from its neonatal intensive care unit to a Fort Worth hospital out of fear that power outages might disable their ventilators.
Harvey would be the first significant hurricane to hit Texas since Ike in September 2008 brought winds of 110 mph (177 kph) to the Galveston and Houston areas, inflicting $22 billion in damage. It would be the first big storm along the middle Texas coast since Hurricane Claudette in 2003 caused $180 million in damage.
It’s taking aim at the same vicinity as Hurricane Carla, the largest Texas hurricane on record. Carla came ashore in 1961 with wind gusts estimated at 175 mph and inflicted more than $300 million in damage. The storm killed 34 people and forced about 250,000 people to evacuate.
In Houston, one of the nation’s most flood-prone cities, Bill Pennington prepared his one-story home for what he expected would be its third invasion of floodwaters in as many years and the fifth since 1983.
“We know how to handle it. We’ll handle it again,” Pennington said he told his nervous 9-year-old son.
Dozens were in lines Thursday at a Corpus Christi Sam’s Club, at home improvement stores and supermarkets. Alex Garcia bought bottled water, bread and other basics in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land after dropping his daughter off at college. He said grocery items were likely more available in Houston than back home in Corpus Christi, where Garcia, a beer distributor salesman, said stores were “crazy.”
“We’ll be selling lots of beer,” he laughed.
In Galveston, where a 1900 hurricane went down as the worst in U.S. history, City Manager Brian Maxwell said he was anticipating street flooding and higher-than-normal tides.
“Obviously being on an island, everybody around here is kind of used to it.”