Harvey's impact to Tri-City area uncertain, significant rainfall still expected

Hurricane Harvey intensified as it steered toward the Texas coast on Friday, with forecasters saying it had strengthened to a Category 2 storm with the potential to swamp communities more than 100 miles inland.

The Morgan City area is still projected to get 6 to 10 inches of rain from Harvey during the next seven-day period, said Meteorologist Seth Warthen of the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office.

Uncertainty remains over what Harvey will do after it makes landfall this weekend, Warthen said. It’s projected to “stall out over the coast” for a couple of days after making landfall in Texas, he said.

It should then either go back out slightly into the Gulf of Mexico and subsequently move northeast into Louisiana, or potentially stay on land and still move northeast, Warthen said.

“There’s still a little confusion on what exactly is going to happen the start of next week with whatever Harvey still is,” he said.

A coastal flood advisory is in effect through the weekend from Jefferson County, Texas, to the mouth of the Atchafalaya River due to potential storm surge.

As of 4 a.m. Friday, Harvey was centered about 180 miles southeast of Corpus Christi and was moving northwest near 9 mph with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph.

Harvey’s effect would be broad. The hurricane center said storm surges as much as 3 feet could be expected as far north as Morgan City, some 400 miles away from the anticipated landfall.

Duval Arthur, St. Mary Parish’s emergency preparedness director, said parish officials have declared a state of emergency as a precautionary measure in case they need to get additional equipment to be ready for any possible impact.

“We’re watching it carefully,” Arthur said.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards issued an emergency declaration Thursday, preparing the state for the possibility of flooding rains from Texas-bound Hurricane Harvey.

“This is a very serious storm,” Edwards said at a news conference in Baton Rouge.

In Morgan City, sand and sandbags will be available Friday under U.S. 90 on David Drive if residents need them, said Jean Paul Bourg, city public works supervisor and drainage district board member. Residents will have to fill their own bags and bring their own shovels.

City workers are also filling sandbags in case the city needs use those bags, Bourg said.

There will also be sandbag locations available at the Bayou Vista barn under the water tower on La. 182 and at Hanson barn located by La. 182 and Hanson Canal, Arthur said.

Sand and bags are available for Patterson residents at the fire station across the tracks on the corner of Veterans Boulevard and Progresso Road, Mayor Rodney Grogan said. More will be made available after lunch on Friday at the Public Works Department located on Taft Street across from Hattie A. Watts Elementary School, Grogan said. Residents must bring their own shovels.

Morgan City officials have checked to make sure the drainage pumps are working properly in the city and are adding three additional pumps to give the city more pumping capacity, Bourg said.

Officials plan to close the gate on Walnut Street canal in Lakeside Subdivision, Bourg said.

Construction has affected the pumping capacity at a station on Victor II Boulevard.

“We’re not 100 percent over there, but we’re adding pumps. And we did some modifications to the drainage canal to assist that station,” Bourg said.

The slow-moving hurricane could be the fiercest such storm to hit the United States in almost a dozen years. Forecasters labeled Harvey a “life-threatening storm” that posed a “grave risk” as millions of people braced for a prolonged battering.

The storm has the potential to produce winds hitting 125 mph and storm surges of 12 feet.

Landfall was predicted for late Friday or early Saturday along the central Texas coast, between Port O’Connor and Matagorda Bay. The stretch of coastline spans about 30 miles roughly 70 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.

“We’re forecasting continuing intensification right up until landfall,” National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.

Harvey grew quickly Thursday from a tropical depression into a Category 1 hurricane. Early Friday, the National Hurricane Center reported it had become a Category 2 hurricane.

Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, the storm was projected to become a major Category 3 hurricane before it makes landfall. The last storm of that category to hit the U.S. was Hurricane Wilma in October 2005 in Florida.

All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island have ordered mandatory evacuations of tens of thousands of residents from all low-lying areas. In four of those counties, officials ordered their entire county evacuated and warned those who stayed behind that no one could be guaranteed rescue.

Voluntary evacuations have been urged for Corpus Christi itself and for the Bolivar Peninsula, a sand spit near Galveston where many homes were washed away by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike in 2008.