New Storm Heads For Swamped Texas Border
A rain-packed tropical depression is headed out of the Gulf toward the Texas-Mexico border region today.
It's a new threat to cities struggling with floods along the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
Police in Laredo were evacuating people in low-lying areas as the rain-swollen Rio Grande rose to more than 25 feet above flood stage.
Tens of thousands of people already had been forced from their homes in Mexican towns as officials dumped torrents of water into flood-swollen rivers to avoid the risk of dams overflowing out of control due to last week's Hurricane Alex.
The storm early today was centered about 80 miles east of Brownsville.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for the Texas coast south of Baffin Bay and for Mexico north of the San Fernando River.
To the southeast, Mexican officials evacuated nearly 18,000 people from houses in Ciudad Anahuac for fear that water would overflow the Venustiano Carranza dam and threaten lives.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
