Is Texas Ready for Hurricane Harvey?
Experts have long worried that a powerful storm striking the Gulf Coast could be a costly and deadly environmental disaster.
Hurricane Ike, a storm that struck the Texas Gulf Coast in 2008, was the kind of event that’s often described as a wake-up call. Hurricane Harvey, which is expected to strike near Corpus Christi early Friday, could show whether the region actually woke up.
Harvey is expected to make landfall as a Category 3 storm, with winds of at least 111 miles per hour—the most powerful storm to strike the mainland U.S. since 2005. The current National Hurricane Center forecast has it making landfall on the middle Texas coast, well below Houston, although forecasters caution that its track remains uncertain. Portions of the coast, from the Padre Island National Seashore to Sargent, could receive a storm surge of 6 to 12 feet
