Claudette Cleanup Begins
Although Claudette was originally forecast as a weak category one hurricane, some Texas residents say she grew into a storm with a mission to be mean.
"It was not small, it was much more vicious," said Jean Lohe.
"It was like getting hit by a car almost -- it pushed and jarred everything: cabinet doors, refrigerators, everything," added John Willis.
It was the kind of power that surprised even hurricane veterans who have lived through much worse and were expecting much less, reports CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan.
More than a dozen Texas counties have been declared disaster areas, with damage estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Some of the damage is from wind, most from water. At least two people were killed in the storm.
The peeled roofs, flattened trailers, collapsed facades and twisted gas station canopies Claudette left behind had the markings of a much stronger storm than the minimal Category 1 hurricane that arrived Tuesday.
It was the first storm of the season to make landfall, one of the strongest to hit this early along the gulf, and the first hurricane to hit Texas in four years.
By early Wednesday morning, Claudette had begun dissipating over South Texas, where many residents had spent the night in the dark and without air conditioning after power lines were downed in several communities.
Its effects are not yet over, reports Cowan: More rain as well as scattered thunderstorms are trailing behind the storm, or what's left of it, making cleanup that much more difficult.
The storm caught many off-guard by foiling forecasters with its changing speed and direction.
Residents along the affected area — from swamped beach house owners and vacationers on Galveston Island to the northeast down to the strike zone around Port O'Connor and Palacios on the mid-Texas coast — complained forecasters didn't allow enough time to prepare.
"Many people have told me they were shocked by Claudette's strength and the scope of its damage, since it was only a Category 1 storm," reports CBS' Jim Krasula in Victoria.
"It's called the unpredictability of tropical storms," said Gene Hafele, a Houston-based National Weather Service meteorologist.
But Henry Pongratz, Postmaster and President of the Port O'Connor Chamber Of Commerce, said damage was fairly moderate.
"Could have been a lot worse. I think we're happy with what we got," he said on CBS News' Early Show. "I mean, we've got some people that's in a real bad need right now, but if you look back at where the hurricane happened in '61, it wiped out the whole town. So we still got a lot standing.
"We've got a good community base. We're going get it cleaned up and back moving before long."
According to the National Hurricane Center, which as late as Sunday was predicting landfall near the mouth of the Rio Grande, the storm packed sustained winds of more than 85 mph when it came ashore. Gusts were reported to approach triple digits, and flooding was reported in low-lying areas where the storm dumped several inches of rain.
"I've seen dozens of homes, businesses and schools without their roofs, cars, trucks, motor homes flipped over, and extensive flooding," said Krasula.
In Jourdanton, about 35 miles south of San Antonio, 13-year-old Clayton Dojahn was killed when a mesquite tree fell on him in his front yard, police said. A 33-year-old woman was killed in Victoria by a limb from one of the many storm-damaged trees, authorities said.
In Austin, Gov. Rick Perry signed a disaster relief proclamation to help speed state and federal response and authorized use of Texas National Guard soldiers and equipment to assist in rescue and recovery.
He also asked President Bush for a federal disaster declaration for 15 counties.
Despite a lack of power in Port Lavaca, Gary Weaver had reopened his small grocery by early afternoon, accepting only cash and totaling bills on the back of scrap paper.
"This building is solid concrete, reinforced with I-beams," Weaver said of the relatively undamaged business, which his father started in 1959. "And the beer cooler is like a building within a building, so if things really get bad we can get in there with some Vienna sausages and ride it out."
Claudette packed relentless winds and punishing tides that likely caused severe beach erosion in the counties in its path and to the east. The first row of beach houses in Galveston and Brazoria counties could face condemnation by the state.
It was first hurricane to strike Texas since 1999, when Bret slammed into a largely unpopulated stretch between Corpus Christi and Brownsville. The last major hurricane to hit Texas was Alicia, which decimated the Houston-Galveston area in 1983.