Storm May Reach Southeast as Season’s 1st Hurricane

Tropical Storm Bonnie is strengthening in the Caribbean and could come ashore in the United States by Monday as the season’s first hurricane, forecasters said Friday.

At the same time, Tropical Storm Charley in the Gulf of Mexico threatened parts of Texas.

“Definitely, it’s getting stronger,” Jerry Jarrell, director of the National Hurricane Center, said of Bonnie. “People along the Southeastern U.S. should pay attention to its progress.”

Bonnie was about 200 miles north of Puerto Rico late Friday, with top winds at about 70 mph. The storm was traveling a course that could take it near the Bahamas, then toward the United States.

Forecasters expected Bonnie to become the season’s first hurricane by today. A storm is upgraded to a hurricane when sustained winds pass 74 mph.

Winds could reach 100 mph by Monday, Jarrell said.

“We are concerned about the whole Southeastern coast and are not ruling out South Florida or North Carolina,” he said.

Jarrell said the storm also could veer out to sea and miss the coast entirely. North Florida is more likely than any other region to be hit if the storm reaches shore.

The government of the Bahamas issued a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch for the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, and a hurricane watch for the central Bahamas.

Heavy showers were reported in Puerto Rico, the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and other islands.

In Texas, meanwhile, tropical storm warnings were posted from Brownsville to High Island, near Galveston.

Late Friday, Charley carried sustained winds of more than 39 mph and was centered about 100 miles southeast of Port Aransas.

High winds could push water in the Gulf toward the coast, creating a 4- to 6-foot storm surge, especially in the northern half of the warning area, hurricane forecaster Miles Lawrence said.

Hundreds of workers were evacuated Friday from offshore oil rigs as a precaution, Coast Guard Petty Officer Rusty Miller said. “There’s a lot of rigs in the Gulf, and each one has an average of 120 to 148 personnel,” Miller said.

This season’s first storm, Alex, fizzled out as it neared the Caribbean earlier this month.