Humberto Weakens After Blasting Texas
Category 1 Hurricane Now A Tropical Storm; Thousands Without Power In Southeast Texas
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Play CBS Video Video Humberto Attacks At Night
Within a half-hour, tropical storm Humberto increased to a Category 1 hurricane and walloped High Island, Texas, in the middle of the night. Mark Strassmann reports
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Video Tracking Humberto
Michelle Mainelli of National Weather Service warns Hannah Storm that Hurricane Humberto, with its torrential rains, may increase the risk of severe flooding.
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Video Humberto Hits Texas, Louisiana
Humberto, a Category 1 hurricane, battered the Texas coastline before moving onward to Louisiana. WAFB meteorologist Steve Caparotta reports.
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Barbara Schley hugs her neighbor Jack Payton whose High Island home was destroyed by Hurricane Humberto Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007, in High Island, Texas. Jack and his wife, Connie, have lived at the home for 44 years. They were home as the hurricane knocked the building seven feet off the foundation and took off the roof. (AP Photo/Melissa Phillip)
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Traffic moves slowly through floodwaters spawned by Hurricane Humberto early Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007, in Beaumont, Texas. (AP Photo/The Beaumont Enterprise)
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Vela Rogers, 73, surveys the damage around her home caused by Hurricane Humberto Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007 in Stowell, Texas. (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)
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Thomas Moses, 61, picks up his bedroom window that was blown out by high winds caused by Hurricane Humberto, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007 in Stowell, Texas. (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)
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The area expected to be hit the hardest is in the far southeast corner of Texas from Galveston Island eastward. It includes the Beaumont and Port Arthur areas. (CBS/EARLY SHOW)
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Photo Essay Surprise! It's Humberto Storm quickly gains hurricane strength, lashes south Texas and Louisiana.
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- Tropical Storm Humberto Forms
According to Bridge City Police, an east Texas man in his mid-70s was killed when his carport fell on top of him, reports CBS Affiliate KFDM.
Officers say the man had gone outside to look for possible damage to his home, when the carport collapsed.
Authorities are not yet releasing the identity of the man.
It was the first hurricane - albeit a relatively tame Category 1
to hit the United States since Hurricane Wilma slammed into Florida in October 2005.
Few storms on record built intensity faster than Humberto. A half-hour before landfall, it grew into a hurricane, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.
At 3 a.m., Jack Payton and his wife started praying.
“I was in bed and I felt the house moving back, and I said, I’m moving backwards," Jack Payton of High Island, Texas, told CBS News.
The entire house slid 7 feet from the slab.
"I just felt it move back real slow. It quit. And all of a sudden - bam - and then I hear the roof go. That was it," added Payton.
Humberto did not exist until late Wednesday afternoon, and was not even a tropical storm until almost midday, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35-mph winds to a hurricane with 85-mph winds in just 18 hours, senior hurricane specialist James Franklin said at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
"To put this development in perspective - no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall. It would be nice to know, someday, why this happened," Franklin said.
Humberto made landfall near the same spot Hurricane Rita did in 2005, and areas of southwest Louisiana not fully recovered from Rita were bracing for more misery.
The storm struck about 5 miles east of High Island, near the eastern tip of the Texas coast, then weakened and bore into central Louisiana, forecasters said.
Power was knocked out for most of Beaumont and Port Arthur and about 100,000 customers were without power in the wake of the storm, Entergy Texas spokeswoman Debi Derrick said.
"We do hope to have customers' service restored, but it may be a couple of days for some," she said.
One location blacked out was Jefferson County's Emergency Operations Center in Beaumont, where wind speeds of 75 to 80 mph were noted, said Michael White, Jefferson County's assistant emergency management coordinator. Officials were forced to track the storm with laptops, he said.National Weather Service Image Of Humberto
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National Weather Service Image Of HumbertoValero Energy Corp.said a power outage shut down its 325,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Port Arthur, and Shell Oil Co. said the 265,500 barrel per day Motiva Port Arthur Refinery was similarly affected.
A hurricane warning is in effect from east of High Island to Cameron, Louisiana, while a tropical storm warning covers a section of Louisiana coast east of there. The storm had been expected to stay a tropical storm but energized into a Category 1 hurricane after midnight.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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More From Eye On The Storm
- Mr Payton, I''m sorry for what you''re going through today. I hope your community pulls through for you.
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- I hate to hear it slim1h2o. We''ve had our share of drought. Good luck, maybe one of these hurricans will bring you some rain. BTW our average is around 20 inches a year, this year we are over 50 inches. Nice for a change.
- Reply to this comment
- Oops, that was a typo, it should have been immunity.
- Reply to this comment
- klingon69,
I''m with you, I was wondering the same thing about these immigration stories being blocked from comment. Looks like Americas feelings about immagration are not welcome. I''m American made and think that all illegals should go back to their countries and regain entry into the US legally. Perhaps the US could strike an agreement with the countries in question to allow some kind of favor to those that go back and pursue entry legally. I happen to have a brother-in-law who is an illegal and he, like all of the rest of them, is just biding his time because he feels strongly that the US will cave in and grant him/them ammunity because of their shear numbers. Nothing like blackmailing an entire country, but I think we deserve it for being so lax in upholding our own LAWS. - Reply to this comment
- This is extremely off-topic, but what is up with CBSNEWS? They allow message posting of this and stories about the WV 6 and so forth, but have not allowed message posting on any illegal immigrant stories in quite awhile. Why?
- Reply to this comment
- I''''m so glad the hurricane is hitting Texas.
Posted by Precious_Thi at 09:51 AM : Sep 13, 2007
Precious, you''re back! Great! You really need to get over that unfortunate incident when the girl made you wear that saddle. - Reply to this comment
- STOP GLOBAL WHINING !
STOP GLOBAL WHINING !
HEY, HEY, HO, HO, GLOBAL WHINING HAS GOTTA GO !
HEY, HEY, HO, HO, GLOBAL WHINING HAS GOTTA GO !
LOL - Reply to this comment
- STOP GLOBAL WHINING !
STOP GLOBAL WHINING !
HEY, HEY, HO, HO, GLOBAL WHINING HAS GOTTA GO !
HEY, HEY, HO, HO, GLOBAL WHINING HAS GOTTA GO !
LOL - Reply to this comment
- STOP GLOBAL WHINING !
STOP GLOBAL WHINING !
HEY, HEY, HO, HO, GLOBAL WHINING HAS GOTTA GO !
HEY, HEY, HO, HO, GLOBAL WHINING HAS GOTTA GO !
LOL - Reply to this comment
- Texas is just lucky Heberto wasn''t a force 5 from Navrone! There have been 3 cat 5 hurricanes this year already.
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Gen. Ray Odierno, head of multinational forces in Iraq, on progress there and plans for Afghanistan.
