Hurricane Alex and Texas Hurricane Information

Texas Hurricane Information

The time to be prepared and make evacuation plans is now, not the day before a storm. Start by reviewing our hurricane evacuation maps below and selecting an evacuation route for you and your family.

• Statewide Road Conditions or call toll free (800) 452-9292
• Hurricane Evacuation Roadway Contraflow Brochures (Routes)
• Hurricane Evacuation Contraflow Videos
• National Hurricane Center

Evacuation Routes

Evacuation route maps from the Texas coast, including from Beaumont, Corpus Christi, Houston, Pharr and Yoakum, are available.Guides for traveling major highways in the region during an evacuation are also available. Activated evacuation routes will be reflected in current road conditions or by calling (800) 452-9292.

	Evacuation routes for all coastal regions, from Beaumont to Brownsville.			Evacuation routes for Beaumont, including Port Arthur.
	Evacuation routes for Corpus Christi, including Aransas Pass and Port Aransas.			Evacuation routes for Houston, including Harris County and Galveston.
	Evacuation routes for Pharr, including Brownsville, Laredo and McAllen.			Evacuation routes for Yoakum, including Victoria and Matagorda Bay.

Mandatory Evacuations

If state or local officials order a mandatory evacuation - leave immediately. Be sure your home is secure, and take your pets with you.

Unless you are physically unable to evacuate, we urge you to obey evacuation orders. Remember, the longer you wait, the more likely you are to get stuck in evacuation traffic. If you are elderly or disabled and need evacuation assistance, please call 2-1-1.

Emergency Management Officials

• Texas.gov Emergency Portal
• Governor's Division of Emergency Management
• Federal Emergency Management Agency

Twitter Notifications

TxDOT will work to deliver road condition and evacuation information via Twitter feeds. Follow these for up-to-the-minute transportation news and local traffic information.

Prepare a Survival Kit

If you believe you will not be evacuating during a hurricane, please prepare a survival kit. Some reasons for not evacuating include:

• A mandatory evacuation is not issued.
• You are physically or financially unable to leave your home.
• You live in an area that is not prone to flooding or storm surges.

Traffic Cameras

• Highway Cameras

Weather Reports

During a weather emergency, stay tuned to local news/weather bulletins, and visit the following Web pages for the latest weather information.

• National Weather Service
• The Weather Channel
• CNN Weather

Aex became the first June hurricane in the Atlantic since 1995 as oil companies evacuated workers in the Gulf of Mexico and girded for a storm surge that may affect production and refineries in the region.

The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour, was 220 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and heading northwest at 7 mph, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory just before 8 a.m. in Miami. The hurricane was forecast to intensify before making landfall.

The hurricane has halted about 25 percent of crude production in the Gulf of Mexico and 9 percent of natural-gas output, the U.S. government said.

Three rigs and 28 platforms have been evacuated because of the storm, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said in a statement on its website. Almost 396,000 barrels of daily oil output were shut-in, along with 600 million cubic feet of gas.

“Shutting-in oil and gas production is a standard procedure conducted by industry for safety and environmental reasons,” the agency, which is part of the U.S. Interior Department, said in the statement.

Texas Tornadoes

Tornadoes are possible in southern Texas today along with dangerous waves on shore as the storm builds, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Alex is expected to come ashore late tonight or early tomorrow in the northeastern Mexico-southern Texas border area.

“A dangerous storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 3 to 5 feet above ground level along the immediate coast to the north of where the center makes landfall,” according to the advisory. “The surge could penetrate inland as far as several miles from the shore.”

Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. oil refiner, has three south Texas plants that may be disrupted by the storm or inland flooding, spokesman Bill Day said. It has set aside emergency water, food and first aid for the refineries at a center for its retail stores near its San Antonio headquarters.

“We have contracts with companies that can provide enough power to run a refinery with generators,” Day said yesterday. Valero’s two Corpus Christi refineries are about 160 miles northeast of Brownsville. Another refinery inland at Three Rivers is about 70 miles northwest of Corpus Christi.

Allison Record

Alex is the earliest Atlantic hurricane since Allison formed June 3, 1995, the Hurricane Center said. Last year, Bill was upgraded to a hurricane on Aug. 15. The Atlantic storm season runs from June through November.

Alex is a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir- Simpson scale though it could become a Category 2 prior to landfall, the center said. A Category 2 storm has winds of at least 96 mph. It’s expected to drop as much as 12 inches of rain in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas; some locales may receive 20 inches of rain.

The Gulf Coast is home to 43 percent of operable U.S. refining capacity, according to the Energy Department. Gulf Coast refiners in August and September 2008 lost about 20 percent of production capacity due to hurricanes Ike and Gustav.

“Refining units themselves are built to withstand heavy winds but flooding can be a concern,” Valero’s Day said. After hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, “we moved a lot of our electrical equipment higher. A refinery can weather a storm but it won’t be able to operate if it doesn’t have electricity.”

Oil Spill

The storm’s track keeps it away from a direct hit on the oil slick from a damaged BP Plc well, the biggest spill in U.S. history. Still, Alex’s circulation is so large it will raise tides along the Louisiana coast two to three feet above normal, said Jeff Masters of Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

BP has been collecting oil from the Macondo well that’s been spewing an estimated 60,000 barrels a day of crude into the Gulf since April 20. Yesterday, BP senior vice-president Kent Wells said efforts to contain the leak were disrupted.

Skimming and burning operations were stopped yesterday because of thunderstorms and rough seas, said Chuck Wolf, a spokesman for the Deepwater Horizon joint information center in New Orleans.

Gulf Evacuations

The Gulf of Mexico is home to about 30 percent of U.S. oil, 12 percent of its natural gas production and seven of the 10 busiest U.S. ports.

BP and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the biggest oil producers in the Gulf, evacuated hundreds of workers from platforms in the western and central Gulf as a safety precaution.

Shell said about 900 workers had been evacuated by 11 a.m. yesterday in Houston and 630 remained offshore. “Production from our East assets will be evaluated as the storm progresses,” the company said on its website.

Exxon Mobil Corp. also evacuated workers from offshore platforms and said 8,000 barrels a day of gross oil output and 123 million cubic feet of gas has been shut in, according to an e-mailed statement. ConocoPhillips evacuated the Magnolia platform, which in 2009 averaged 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, the company said on its website.

Apache, Williams

Apache Corp. closed six of its 13 platforms in the Gulf and evacuated 135 people, company spokesman Bob Dye said. Another three platforms may be closed.

Williams Partners LP expects reduced processing at its Markham natural gas plant in Texas because some offshore gas producers have shut output, spokesman Jeff Pounds said.

“Despite some temporary shut-ins across the western Gulf and some delays in shipping traffic, Alex does not represent a destructive hazard to a large portion of the energy production region,” said Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist at Planalytics Inc.

Crude oil for August delivery rose 0.9 percent to $76.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 5:54 a.m. local time.

Hurricane warnings, earlier issued from Baffin Bay near Padre Island in Texas to La Cruz in Mexico, remained in effect, said the National Hurricane Center. The storm is being blamed for at least 13 deaths in Central America.

Residents and officials in Brownsville and McAllen, Texas, prepared for flooding and widespread power outages similar to those experienced when Hurricane Dolly struck the area, according to government websites. Dolly followed a path similar to Alex in July 2008 and caused about $1.05 billion in damage.

Brownsville, a city of 175,000, gave residents sandbags earlier this week. Texas Governor Rick Perry declared 19 counties a disaster area to free up resources and activated 2,500 National Guard troops, eight helicopters and three C-130 transport planes in advance of the season’s first storm.

He also asked President Barack Obama yesterday to declare an emergency in those counties because that would allow the state to ask for federal assistance in removing debris and to cover costs of preparing for the storm.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net Mark Scott in London at mscott50@bloomberg.net

South Padre Island After Hurricane Alex:

*We missed a direct hit! We are open for business!

*Barring any challenges from tides or weather,
the beaches of South Padre Island should reopen Friday.

*The WAVE is back in operation as of noon today and will resume its regular schedule.

*SPI Visitors Center is open and ready to help our tourist.

*SPI Chamber of Commerce is open and helping to get the word out that the Island is open for business.

*Fireworks will be held at 9:15 p.m. on Friday and Sunday.

*Isla Blanca Park and Andy Bowie Park are open.