CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) - Hurricane Harvey neared landfall in Texas Friday night, promising to be the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade with 130 mph winds and torrential rain whose forecast earlier sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing the state's Gulf Coast in hopes of escaping its wrath. Even after weakening, the system might spin out into the Gulf and regain strength before hitting Houston a second time Wednesday as a tropical storm, forecasters said. Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, Harvey grew rapidly, accelerating from a Category 1 early Friday morning to a Category 4 by evening. About 30 miles (45 km) from Corpus Christi and moving northwest, Harvey caused scattered power outages both on the coast near Galveston and 100 miles (160 km) inland. It’s expected to bring 15 to 25 inches of rain to the Texas coast, with isolated instances where rainfall totals could reach 35 inches, the hurricane center said, bumping up the predicted totals by 5 inches since a previous advisory. If peak storm surge arrives during high tide, parts of the coast could see 2 to 8 feet of flooding, with the potential of 6 to 12 feet between Padre Island National Seashore and Sargent, Texas. University of Miami senior hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said Harvey combines the worst attributes of nasty recent Texas storms: The devastating storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008; the winds of Category 4 Hurricane Brett in 1999 and days upon days of heavy rain of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Long said FEMA is “fully engaged” with the White House, as Harvey is poised to deliver a critical test of President Donald Trump’s abilities as commander-in-chief.
In anticipation of Hurricane Harvey, residents from Corpus Christi to Galveston, Texas, and workers from Gulf of Mexico oil platforms are evacuating the region. The storm makes landfall between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor as a Category 4 hurricane around 11 p.m. EDT (0300 UTC, August 26) as the strongest storm to hit the United States mainland since 2004. The National Hurricane Center predicts Harvey will linger over Texas for days, dumping 15–25 inches (38–64 cm), and as much as 35 inches (89 cm) of rain on some parts of the state.