Texas braces for year’s first hurricane as state still reels from coronavirus

Texas, already struggling with a surge in coronavirus cases, was bracing Saturday after storm Hanna strengthened into the first Atlantic hurricane of 2020, with meteorologists warning of heavy rain, storm surge and potentially life-threatening flash flooding.

The storm, with wind speeds of around 80 miles per hour (130 kilometres per hour), strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane overnight and is expected to make landfall by afternoon or early evening, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

It could bring storm surges of up to five feet and drop up to 18 inches of rain on parts of south Texas, the NHC said, warning of dangerous flash flooding.

Hanna was about 85 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, at 10am local time (1500 GMT), and was moving west at about seven miles per hour, an NHC advisory said.

Expected to make a slight turn later in the day, it “should make landfall along the Texas coast within the hurricane warning area this afternoon or early this evening,” the advisory continued.

Storm warnings were already in effect along Texas’s Gulf coast early on Saturday. In Corpus Christi, a city of 325,000, officials closed libraries and museums as residents braced for the storm, local media reported.