Hurricane Poised to Rip Texas Coast : Residents Flee, Stores Low on Goods as Storm Threatens to Hit Land Today

BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — The early wind of Hurricane Gilbert keened across the brown rind of the Texas Gulf Coast on Thursday as it aimed its deadly eye at the lowland between here and Corpus Christi and threatened death and destruction across the underbelly of the state, possibly as early as this afternoon.

Residents fled the coast, boarding up their communities like ghost towns. Cars full of refugees filed north in a steady stream, headlights slicing through a strange midday dusk. Stores ran low on bottled water, batteries, canned tuna and bread. Schools let out. Officials stockpiled sandbags. Hospitals asked for blood.

As the National Weather Service issued a hurricane warning for Mexico’s northern coast and half of the Texas coast, from Brownsville to Port O’Connor, Gov. Bill Clements issued an emergency proclamation permitting local authorities to suspend laws if necessary “to preserve the health, safety and welfare of the public.”

The National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Fla., said there was a 60% chance that the eye of the storm would strike land near Brownsville at about 1 p.m. CDT today. That path would send it near Corpus Christi by about 7 p.m. Forecasters noted, however, that Gilbert had slowed slightly, and the slowing might presage a slight shift toward the north.

In the event of such a turn, the hurricane center said there was a 30% chance that Gilbert would hit the coast somewhere between Corpus Christi and Houston.

Expected to Intensify

Forecasters said the storm will intensify to 140 m.p.h. with gusts to 160 m.p.h. by the time it makes landfall, which would make it a Category Four storm, less than the maximum Category Five force it carried as it shrieked across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Wednesday. At that point, it was the most powerful storm in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

It killed at least six people in Mexico. Earlier, it had brought death to 40 others as it crossed the Caribbean. In its wake thus far, Gilbert has left more than a half million people homeless and caused billions of dollars worth of damage.

The storm, hundreds of miles wide, sent terror through much of Texas, flat as a tortilla across vast stretches of its interior, away from the coast. The Johnson Space Center, 25 miles inland, all but shut down. As long as Gilbert causes little damage at the center, officials said, it will have no effect on the expected launching of the first post-Challenger shuttle flight later this month.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials postponed the announcement of a firm launching date until after the storm had passed.

Overhead, the United States and the Soviet Union marked a first. Soviet pilots, flying a four-engine military AN-12 aircraft out of Cuba, tried to stake out air space over the hurricane for research. But an Air Force WC-130 aircraft from the United States arrived first to gather data used in plotting Gilbert’s path.

The Soviet plane flew into the storm anyway.

Made Agreement

The Air Force plane was joined by a second American aircraft, a civilian P-3 weather plane operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By radio, the three crews agreed to confine the Soviet plane to 12,000 feet altitude, the Air Force craft to 10,000 feet and the civilian plane to 5,000 feet.

“They worked it out among themselves,” said Bob Sheets, director of the hurricane center in Florida.

Pentagon officials called it the first agreement of its kind.

On the ground, the Navy closed its Corpus Christi and Beeville air stations. Nearly 170 Navy training planes were flown inland to an Air Force base, an Army airfield and a civilian airport. Navy personnel and dependents were sent to Lackland Air Force Base, 130 miles inland.

Navy ships in the Gulf of Mexico were ordered to ride out the fury of the storm at sea--and avoid getting battered at docks along the shore. The Tortuga, a military landing ship, was towed up the Mississippi River and out of the way.

More than 4,000 convicts were moved from five Texas prison units to safer facilities inland. Several hundred prisoners were moved from county jails along the coast to inland jails that had extra room.

Helicopters ferried 10,000 workers from offshore oil rigs.

Massive Evacuation

The Army went on alert so it could send troops to supervise a massive evacuation of the entire Texas coast if necessary. It mobilized its Corps of Engineers to assist in relief. In Washington, the Federal Emergency Management Agency opened an around-the-clock crisis center to coordinate relief efforts.

Paper work was prepared to allow President Reagan to issue a disaster declaration almost immediately--and set the relief efforts in motion. Ordinarily, the paper work takes five to seven days.

Gov. Clements had 21,000 National Guardsmen at his disposal if needed for relief work and to prevent looting. He sent some of the troops to Alice, McAllen and Corpus Christi. Texas Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox organized a task force of attorneys and investigators to prosecute “uncaring and greedy” price gougers who overcharged for emergency supplies.

The first winds of Hurricane Gilbert tittered and moaned across the Texas Gulf Coast at dawn Thursday. They brought clouds and light rain.

As the wind swept across Port Isabel, near the southern tip of Padre Island, officials mounted a total evacuation. At 4 p.m., the sea roiled angry brown and the wind stiffened. The resort of South Padre Island was emptied.

“Water and electricity have been cut and no one’s being allowed in,” said the lone policeman waving cars away from the closed causeway feeding South Padre Island from the town of Port Isabel. He said authorities were escorting stragglers off the island, and then everyone, including the policemen, would leave.

At the Port Isabel Marina, weary crews hoisted the last fishing trawlers into dry dock. Sixteen boats lined the small street facing the marina.

Eduardo Campirano, the South Padre Island town manager, told reporters: “We have not gotten any indictions that there will be any idiots staying.” And Mayor Bob Pinkerton said: “People can stay as long as we can fingerprint them so we can identify them later.”

Odelia Snell, owner of the Little Mexico gift shop on Highway 100, described boarding up her store. “We started at six yesterday afternoon, quit at one in the morning and started up again at 5:30 a.m.

“Between the store and the house, we’ve nailed over 24 pieces of plywood,” she said, holding up a bloody thumb as proof.

Snell didn’t bother packing much at her home, two blocks from the water.

Removes Possessions

“Just the things that are irreplaceable,” she said. “I took all the pictures I had of my six children, all my IRS papers and my husband’s portrait.”

She also took her children’s diplomas and one last thing:

“A crucifix.”

In Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas, Cameron County Sheriff’s Lt. George Gavito said several colonias--shantytowns without water or electricity--were being evacuated. But he did not expect a major exodus from Brownsville itself, which is about 30 miles inland.

The city of Brownsville has never been evacuated.

“It never will be,” Gavito said. “Brownsville is built pretty good. It’s pretty small . . . . We’ve weathered Beulah, Allen and other hurricanes.”

Gavito said he expected more than 15,000 people to fill shelters in Brownsville schools. Two of the shelters were being set up near the International Bridge to Mexico to accommodate overflow from neighboring Matamoros.

Employees at a Brownsville grocery said they were hustling to keep it stocked with canned goods, bottled water, candles and batteries.

Zoo Animals Protected

Animals at the Brownsville zoo were locked in dens and given extra food and water.

“We can handle 8 to 9 feet of water on the zoo grounds,” curator Jerry Stones told news service reporters. “I could put the gorillas on the buildings. They won’t jump off. They can’t swim.”

Northward along the coast in Corpus Christi, hardware and lumber stores received shipments of plywood every two hours. Homeowners used it to cover windows and glass doors. Each shipment sold out in about 40 minutes.

The Sheraton Marina Inn in downtown Corpus Christi covered its front windows with plywood and painted on a message: “You’re Not Welcome, Gilbert.”

Some hotels were saying much the same to tourists. For their own safety, the hotels asked them to depart as soon as possible.

Residents on islands near Corpus Christi were being evacuated.

San Antonio Shelters

In Aransas Pass, just north of Corpus Christi, emergency management coordinator Andy Anderson said half the population had fled by Thursday afternoon--most of them to San Antonio shelters. He said residents in low-lying areas were evacuated.

“Almost everyone is gone without us telling them to leave,” Anderson said.

At the mouth of Corpus Christi Bay, in Port Aransas, thousands fled the cinnamon beaches along the barrier islands. Interstate 37 out of town was backed up for five miles. Waves mashed their knuckles across the jetties, and the air filled with spray. Windsurfers braved the storm for the rides of their lives.

The town of Port Aransas was nearly deserted. The last ferry ran at 3 p.m.--and there would not be another until Gilbert was a memory. “I wish I could make them all leave, every last one,” said Chief Deputy Constable James Wall. “This storm looks to be a killer.”

For those who stayed, most seemed inclined to greet Gilbert’s wrath with a stare of defiance. Pat McCall, a customer at the Beach Street Bar, slapped the steel hull of a boat that owner Harry Huggins had stored inside. “Is this the ride home?” McCall asked, a dare-me-to-stay look in his eye.

Saloon Remains Open

The saloon was the only establishment open. “We never close,” Huggins said proudly.

Eight years ago, he and six others partied as Hurricane Allen approached. “We drank down 48 cases of beer in four days,” Huggins boasted.

On the Port Aransas beach, Richard Napoli, a welder on an oil rig, took one final look at the rage forming at sea. He had packed his valuables into his old silver Camaro and was about to leave behind the home he had bought six months ago for $60,000--his life savings.

“I had tears in my eyes when I boarded up,” he said. “Then I put up a sign: ‘Gilbert Go Away!’ I drank a few beers and realized I ought to have said: ‘Go Away, Please!’ And I fixed it. You have to show some respect.”

In San Antonio, Jim Von Schounmacher of the American Red Cross said evacuees began arriving Wednesday night.

Filled One Shelter

“We’ve already filled one shelter and are working on No. 2,” he said. “The Department of Public Safety says several thousand people are coming up right now” from Corpus Christi and other coastal communities.

Farther north, in Galveston, the city passed an emergency ordinance freezing the price of emergency services and goods, such as plywood.

Two men were arrested Wednesday and charged under the ordinance with price gouging.

Officials said the men had been charging $15 to $20 for sheets of plywood that normally cost $8.

The men were jailed in lieu of $500 bond.

At a restaurant in Galveston, workers covered windows with plywood and then spray-painted: “No Mas Gilberto” and “Gilbert Go Home.”

Medical Facility Evacuated

The University of Texas Medical Branch on Galveston Island evacuated 200 patients, as well as 1,600 students.

On Bolivar Peninsula outside Galveston Bay, most beach-goers and about 3,000 residents had departed by sundown Wednesday. They packed the Bolivar Ferry all day.

Galveston City Manager Doug Matthews called the coming storm “a monster.”

He recommended that the city’s 62,000 residents begin evacuating. “We feel that we cannot wait until morning to make that decision.”

Farther inland, in Houston, the hurricane caused postponement of a sold-out show featuring Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli and Sammy Davis Jr.

It had been scheduled for Saturday night. Now it will play Oct. 9.

Nuclear Plant Called Safe

Still farther north, near Bay City, officials at Texas’ only operating nuclear power plant said the facility was safe.

The plant, called the South Texas Project, is 15 miles from the Gulf.

Officials said it could withstand winds of 360 m.p.h.

Even at Port O’Connor, the northernmost town in the hurricane warning zone, people fled. By Thursday afternoon, it was virtually deserted.

By mid-afternoon, tidewater lapped over the city’s 4-foot seawall.

“If (Gilbert) turns north,” said Cil Gonzales, a resident, “Port O’Connor could be wiped out.”

Heavy Thunderclouds

Across the Texas state line in Louisiana, skies were laden with heavy thunderclouds.

For the second time in a week, the saucer-shaped metropolitan area of New Orleans appeared to have been spared. Last weekend, Hurricane Florence fizzled as it came ashore east of the city, and now it appeared Gilbert would pass to the southwest.

“We’re cautiously optimistic that the storm no longer poses a threat to New Orleans,” said city spokeswoman Jinx Broussard.

Thousands of residents of Plaquemines Parish, a low-land finger of Mississippi Delta sticking out into the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans, were ordered to leave their homes and businesses as a precaution against wind-driven high seas.

“We’re all praying,” said Rennie Coludrovich, Plaquemines’ chief of detectives.

He estimated that between 6,000 and 7,000 people had moved from the lowlands to shelters in Belle Chasse south of New Orleans.

An evacuation remained in effect for the second day on Grand Island, where 2,200 people were ordered to high ground on Wednesday.

“We’re not safe yet,” said Ambrose Besson, a deputy sheriff in Jefferson Parish.

This story is based on reporting by Times staff writers Tamara Jones in Brownsville, Barry Bearak in Corpus Christi, J. Michael Kennedy and Melissa Healy in Houston, Larry Green inNew Orleans and John M. Broder in Washington. It was written by Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles.