Holy Hurricane, Batman!
A federal disaster declaration was issued Saturday for Texas counties in Hurricane Dean’s possible path — including Bexar and 15 others in South Texas — a quick response to Gov. Rick Perry’s request for it.
The unusual pre-disaster designation, which applies to 32 counties in all that could be damaged or likely would receive evacuees, would allow federal aid to flow more quickly after landfall.
In San Antonio, the parking lots of the Alamodome became staging areas for buses awaiting mobilization to affected areas.
About 100 school buses were from Dallas County Schools, an intermediate educational agency that provides transportation and other support services to Dallas County’s 15 independent school districts.
The buses will be outfitted with brackets and plywood sheets, so each can carry hospital and nursing home patients on stretchers, said Ginny Melara, area director of Dallas County Schools, which provides transportation to 15 school districts and had 100 buses here.
The Governor’s Division of Emergency Management sent a crew of 220 people, including backup drivers and mechanics, a bigger fleet than it dispatched to East Texas in response to Hurricane Rita, Melara said.
One driver, Carolyn Alexander, said tears came to her eyes during the Rita evacuation when she picked up one woman stranded by the highway with a baby in her arms.
Drivers took people from nursing homes, shelters and the roadside, pets included, she said.
“I’m just happy that we’re here today before something happens,” Alexander said. “I believe that if something happened in Dallas, people would help us.”
The resort city of South Padre Island, on a half-mile-wide strip of barrier island at Texas’ southern tip, declared its own state of emergency Saturday.
South Padre Mayor Robert Pinkerton is fretting that even if the eye strikes well south of the border, as some computer models predict, a possible Category 3 or 4 storm surge of 12 to 14 feet could produce waves of 18 to 20 feet that would cover the island.
“No one here has seen such predicted wave activity,” Pinkerton said.
Nearby Brownsville called for voluntary evacuations, and a Texas Youth Commission facility in the area began moving its juvenile inmates and staff inland.
In Houston, some folks were paying attention to the oddly worded “Hurricane forming near gulf” electronic road signs that also urged drivers to top off their tanks. Stores saw increased sales of bottled water, batteries and plywood.
Shell Oil Co. has evacuated nearly 800 workers from the Gulf and expects to bring more ashore.
The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service estimated Dean had prompted shut-ins of about 10,300 barrels of oil and 16 million cubic feet of natural gas per day, more than double the production reduction from Friday.
Both amounts are small fractions of total Gulf production.
Source: My San Antonio News
Texas, Bexar County, San Antonio, evacuation, preparedness, Hurricane Dean
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