HOUSTON (AP) – The Latest on Hurricane Harvey as it takes aim at the Texas coast (all times local):
8:10 p.m.
Hurricane Harvey is on the verge of landfall on the middle Texas Gulf coast.
The National Hurricane Center reported at 8 p.m. CDT Friday that the storm’s eyewall had begun coming ashore with 130 mph winds.
The NHC defines the eyewall as a ring of clouds that surround the eye of the cyclone. Landfall is when the eye reaches the coast.
Harvey strengthened rapidly late this week from a tropical depression to a dangerous Category 4 hurricane.
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7:55 p.m.
Officials said they had no idea how many Corpus Christi residents heeded their urge to voluntary evacuate the city of 325,000 and nearby low-lying areas taking the brunt of the storm.
Nueces County spokesman Tyner Little said traffic inland “was not hugely heavy as we’ve seen with other hurricanes.”
He said the local sheriff said 90 percent of Port Aransas had left.
Nevertheless, Little said county officials were “kind of freaked out” because the hurricane was tracking closer to Corpus Christi than officials had expected.
Driving into the city on an empty interstate Friday evening, a reporter saw flames flaring from a half-dozen stacks, casting an eerie glow beneath scudding, slate gray hurricane clouds.
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7:40 p.m.
Harvey went from not even a tropical storm to a major Category 4 hurricane in 56 hours, an incredibly fast intensification for a storm.
On Wednesday at 10 am CDT, the National Hurricane Center said Harvey – which had been a tropical storm that faded away on Aug. 19 – had reformed as a tropical depression, a step below a named storm. Harvey’s maximum winds were 35 mph.
And by 6 p.m. CDT Friday, Harvey was a Category 4 hurricane with 130 mph winds and knocking on the Texas coast as what will likely be the strongest hurricane to hit the US in about 13 years.