CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Already battered by the coronavirus pandemic, southeast Texas faced a new but no less frightening foe on Saturday, as Hurricane Hanna slammed the coast with heavy rains and winds predicted to reach up to 110 miles per hour.
Hanna strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday morning, and forecasters issued the first hurricane warning for the southern coastal region since Hurricane Harvey struck the area in August 2017 and caused the worst rainstorm in United States history. Hanna’s eye made landfall on Padre Island, about 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, at about 5 p.m. on Saturday, with winds of 90 m.p.h.
The National Weather Service warned that strong winds from the hurricane, the first of the Atlantic season, could peel roofs from homes, mangle trees and cause power outages, as mayors and local officials turned from one crisis mode to another.
The cities and counties in the path of Hanna are some of the same communities that have seen a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations as Texas has become one of the largest hot spots in the country. In a state that is no stranger to bad weather, the typical hurricane-prep ritual was altered by social distancing and face coverings, with fever checks required to enter officials’ news briefings and sandbag distribution provided by workers who covered their faces in masks and bandannas.
“Hurricanes can be deadly events,” Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference on Saturday afternoon. “We cannot allow this hurricane to lead to a more catastrophically deadly event by stoking additional spread of Covid-19.”
Mr. Abbott said he was issuing a disaster declaration for 32 counties. Chief W. Nim Kidd of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, usually used for concerts, rodeos and other events, would be converted into a reception center for people who had fled their homes. Most people would not stay there, but would instead be given vouchers to stay at hotels in San Antonio.
It was another example of how social distancing is changing where, when and how emergency shelters operate. Officials in California announced recently that the coronavirus was affecting their wildfire preparations, including by having fewer inmates available to assist because of infections and quarantines. But there have been unexpected benefits, too. In late March, a destructive tornado tore through Jonesboro, Ark., and the heart of its commercial district, but not a single person died, in part because businesses were closed and residents were already sheltered at home from the virus.
As Hanna’s outer bands reached Nueces County, which includes Corpus Christi and has had nearly 2,000 new virus cases and 47 deaths in the past seven days alone, officials publicly reminded residents fleeing low-lying areas to bring their face masks with them.
“We’re riding two horses right now, so be sure to take care of what keeps you safe through the Covid experience,” Mayor Joe McComb of Corpus Christi said at a news conference on Friday. Moments later, a woman in a mask and gloves carefully wiped down the podium to sanitize it before the city manager stepped forward.
On Saturday, the mayor told reporters that people who had welcomed friends or relatives into their homes to ride out the hurricane should wear masks while indoors. “Wear the mask in the house,” Mr. McComb said. “I know that probably sounds kind of crazy, but keeping safe sounds pretty good.”
The mayor’s message to the public on Saturday was simple: Keep doing what you have been doing during the pandemic — stay at home.
“I know we’ve been staying at home for five months because of the corona,” Mr. McComb said, adding, “And so staying home doesn’t sound real popular, but right now this is a real important matter.”
The rise in cases in Nueces County was fueled, in part, by visitors from Houston and elsewhere who flocked to its beaches when it had a low case count. More than 10,000 people in Nueces County have been infected with the virus. At least 129 people have died, and 430 people were being treated in hospitals on Friday, the highest total since the pandemic began.
The storm arrived in Corpus Christi on Saturday morning with light rain and strengthening wind that rattled windows and threatened to uproot swaying palm trees.
With the beaches ordered closed to pedestrians and vehicles, the usual summertime bustle of weekenders was gone, even though the city was expected to avoid a direct hit by the hurricane. By Saturday afternoon, a gust of 104 m.p.h. was recorded on the coast south of Corpus Christi, and the city’s airport canceled most of the scheduled flights by Saturday afternoon.
Webb County, which includes the border city of Laredo and is about 150 miles inland from Corpus Christi, has traditionally provided shelter to people fleeing the Texas coast, as it did for hundreds of people during the devastation that Harvey wrought along the coastline in 2017.
On Saturday, officials were grappling with how to handle a potential influx of evacuees without worsening the spread of the coronavirus, which has surged there in recent weeks. More than a quarter of Webb County’s nearly 5,000 cases have come in just the past week, during which 38 people died from the virus.
Tano E. Tijerina, the county executive, said that if evacuees came to the area, officials would take their temperatures, provide them with protective gear and try to separate people with virus symptoms from those who appeared healthy.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to help anyone, that’s with Covid or without Covid,” Mr. Tijerina said. “We’re taking a risk, but we’re being neighborly and we’re never going to turn people away.”
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Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 23, 2020
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What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
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Is the coronavirus airborne?
- The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
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What’s the best material for a mask?
- Scientists around the country have tried to identify everyday materials that do a good job of filtering microscopic particles. In recent tests, HEPA furnace filters scored high, as did vacuum cleaner bags, fabric similar to flannel pajamas and those of 600-count pillowcases. Other materials tested included layered coffee filters and scarves and bandannas. These scored lower, but still captured a small percentage of particles.
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Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
- So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
He said that schools, community centers and even the county fairgrounds could serve as shelters if necessary. He said the daily coronavirus reports were increasingly dire, with four or five people dying each day.
“We’re going to get through it — it’s just a matter of how,” Mr. Tijerina said of the dual threat of the virus and the hurricane.
Hanna, in some ways, provided echoes of its destructive predecessor, Hurricane Harvey.
Hanna was set to strike to the south of Corpus Christi; Harvey hit to the northeast, near the bay town of Rockport. Hanna was expected to make landfall on Saturday, exactly one month before the third anniversary of Harvey, which first hit Rockport on Aug. 25, 2017.
Harvey was one of the worst disasters in American history, causing $125 billion in damage in Texas with winds at 130 miles per hour and record-breaking flooding. More than 100 people died directly and indirectly from Harvey, officials said. More than a quarter of a million homes were damaged and another nearly 16,000 were destroyed.
Hanna was not expected to be nearly as devastating, but the unease grew as the hurricane gathered strength on Saturday.
Corpus Christi residents who live on the coastline of scenic Whitecap Beach kept a watchful eye on the swelling sea waters threatening their condominiums. On Saturday afternoon, a woman on the beach fought the full force of the wind to take a photograph of the rising tide, but quickly turned around when the water rose to her waist. Other residents nervously watched from a boardwalk, and waited.
“These are pretty impressive, aggressive waves,” said Zack Smith, 36, as he tried to stand still. “Once they start reaching my feet, then I’ll leave. I don’t want to get hit by one of those and get washed out.”
The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning for a swath of Texas coast that spanned nearly 100 miles, from Port Mansfield to Port Aransas. A storm surge warning reached even farther north, to about 75 miles south of Houston.
In addition to the wind, forecasters with the hurricane center said the storm would bring up to a foot of rain over the weekend, with some isolated areas getting up to 18 inches. The sudden downpour could lead to “life-threatening flash flooding,” they said. Tornadoes could also pose a threat on Saturday and overnight into Sunday over parts of the coast.
“There could be damage to buildings and structures, especially if there are any tornadoes,” said Brian Field, a forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Corpus Christi.
Hanna is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. In the Pacific Ocean, a Category 3 hurricane continued to churn toward Hawaii, although forecasters said that hurricane, named Douglas, was likely to weaken significantly as it got closer to the islands.
Edgar Sandoval reported from Corpus Christi, Texas, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs from New York and Manny Fernandez from Houston. Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting from New York and Marie Fazio from Jacksonville, Fla.
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