A Gulf of Mexico storm rapidly intensified early today spinning into potentially the biggest hurricane to hit the mainland United States in 12 years and taking aim at the heart of nation’s oil refining industry.
The US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory that hurricane Harvey has strengthened to a category 2 storm, packing winds of 160 km per hour as it moved northwest about 355 km off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas.
The storm is forecast to make landfall late today or early tomorrow, packing winds of up to 201 km per hour. The storm could bring a surge in sea levels as high as 12 feet and dump up to 35 inches of rain over parts of Texas. Flood warnings are in effect for northern Mexico and Louisiana.
The threat has triggered evacuations and canceled the first day of school in communities along the south Texas coast, which is home to 5.8 million people from Corpus Christi to Galveston.
Energy companies shut coastal refineries, pulled workers from Gulf of Mexico offshore oil platforms and halted onshore drilling in south Texas yesterday.
Harvey is forecast to come ashore as a Category 3 hurricane, the US National Hurricane Center said, the third most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which would make it the first major hurricane to hit the mainland United States since Hurricane Wilma struck Florida in 2005.
The government has since changed parliamentary rules to ward off the impeachment and sacked MPs who switched to the opposition. The joint opposition parties have expressed concern over the Supreme Court’s inexplicable delay in announcing a ruling over Election Commission’s decision to disqualify four MPs and call for bypolls.
