Hurricane season starts Monday

Cameron County officials are encouraging residents to begin preparing for the 2009 hurricane season.

With the hurricane season beginning on Monday, officials want the public to not only think preparations, but to begin them.

Hurricane forecasters are predicting there will be nine to 14 named Atlantic storms, with four to seven of them becoming full-fledged hurricanes.
Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

Cameron County officials have sent letters to churches, nonprofit organizations and smaller towns offering to make hurricane awareness presentations to anyone who wants them, Cameron County Judge Carlos H. Cascos said, adding that the county has not done such presentations in the past.

They have already made a presentation at the Town of Indian Lake and at least one adult daycare center, Cascos said.

"We are trying to get people into that frame of mind" that hurricane season is almost here and that the public needs to begin making preparations, the county judge said. "Some people spend more time planning for a vacation than they do planning for a hurricane."

Residents should begin putting together and sealing in plastic baggies personal documents, such as birth certificates, immigration papers and other paperwork for identification purposes. They should also be reviewing evacuation routes they plan to take should they need to leave the area, the county judge said.

Weather radios and free hurricane maps have already popped up at the checkout lanes in the H-E-B store on Central Boulevard in Brownsville.
In late July the Rio Grande Valley experienced the wrath of Hurricane Dolly after the storm made landfall in an uninhabited area near the Cameron County and Willacy County line.

Dolly dumped about 16 inches of rain on the Laguna Madre area and a reported 15 inches near Rio Hondo. Brownsville received an estimated 9 inches of rain while Harlingen received nearly 7 inches, the National Weather Service reported.

Damage to the South Texas area was estimated at $1.2 billion. Dolly was the first Atlantic storm of the 2008 hurricane season to make landfall, the National Climatic Data Center reported.

What worries Johnny Cavazos, emergency management coordinator for Cameron County, is that some people in the Lower Cameron County, particularily Brownsville, may be come complacent should a hurricane strike the area because of the city's experience with Hurricane Dolly.

Hurricane Dolly bypassed Brownsville causing minimal damage to the city while other areas in upper Cameron County experienced severe floodingand were left without electricity for weeks.

"People in Brownsville will be more reluctant to leave" because they survived Dolly with no major destruction, Cavazos said. "What they survived was a Category 1 hurricane that missed them and went north of them and didn't do a whole lot of damaging and flooding," Cavazos said.

This is the part of the reason why the letters are going out offering to make presentations so residents can make the right choices during hurricane season.

Cascos said residents, who need help evacuating should a hurricane make landfall in the area, should sign up now with 2-1-1. Registering with 2-1-1 will allow officials to know the addresses of people who need to be evacuated should a hurricane threaten the area.

The 2-1-1 program is designated for individuals who have no means of transportation to leave the area and others deemed to have special needs.

Cavazos said residents need to be aware that while they are registering addresses with the 2-1-1 database, they will be responsible for getting themselves and their families to the designated pickup points where evacuation buses will meet them.

The pickup points will be announced as a storm approaches, Cavazos said.

The county is following the leadership of the Governor's Emergency Management Division's plan that will be put in action should a hurricane threaten to strike anywhere along the Texas coastline. This includes setting up water stations, gasoline suppliers and rest areas along evacuation routes.

Because the state of Texas has devised an evacuation plan that will be utilized statewide, Cascos said there is no need for municipalities to attempt to address issues on their own.

"You can't have every city doing their own thing," Cascos said. "It's not going to work. It's not going to happen."

Last year, there were 16 named storms with eight of them growing into actual hurricanes, the Associated Press reported. Four of the hurricanes struck Texas.

Whatever happens this year, Cascos said: "We will be ready."

lmartinez@brownsvilleherald.com