Storm Leaves Texas Coast Soggy but Largely Unscathed

Transformed from a lashing hurricane to a sullen, roaming deluge, Tropical Storm Bret dumped more than 25 inches of rain in South Texas and kept thousands from their homes Monday as it made its way slowly west-northwest toward Mexico.

The biggest hurricane to strike the state in two decades, Bret spent much of its strength inundating a vast South Texas ranch. The storm also spawned a tornado that demolished a mobile home between Rockport and Aransas Pass.

And though Bret’s sharpest violence had subsided, residents of Kenedy County, Laredo and the sprawling communities along the Rio Grande all continued bracing for more drawn-out effects: the threats of flooding water tables, a rising Rio Grande jeopardizing poor border communities or “colonias” and the possibility of mosquito-borne dengue fever in poorly served communities once the rain stopped.

By Monday morning, the storm’s winds had dropped from 80 mph to 70 mph, qualifying Bret as a tropical storm, and they kept diminishing through the day. It had hit land Sunday night, spending most of its intensity on the plains and on tens of thousands of huddled cattle in Kenedy County.

One of the hardest-hit communities was Falfurrias, about 60 miles southwest of Corpus Christi. Roofs were ripped off several buildings, power went out and a two-story hotel partially collapsed under the wind, Mayor Michael Guerra said. Although about 40 people were inside, there were no injuries, he said.

President Clinton designated seven counties in the region as disaster areas, freeing funds for local governments’ cleanup and aid efforts, said James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But despite the widespread power outages and scattered property damage yet to be added up by state officials, Bret dwindled without causing any deaths or injuries.

Instead, the storm powered through the broad spaces between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, concentrating its downpour on three gigantic but sparsely populated ranches, including part of the fabled 820,000-acre King Ranch. All 60,000 King Ranch cattle survived, wet but unscathed.

About 58,000 customers were without power throughout the Corpus Christi and Rio Grande areas as a result of the storm, according to the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

Preparing for the storm to sweep through Laredo, officials Monday closed down the international bridges that provide conduits for the city’s heavy truck traffic into Mexico.

“We’re concerned about the outlying cities--the colonias--which are in low-lying areas,” Maria Elena Montemayor of Laredo’s Red Cross said Monday afternoon as a steady rain pelted the border city. “Some of the colonias are right by the Rio Grande, and if the river rises they’re in jeopardy because they will not be able to get out.”

In addition, she said, many of the estimated 15,000 to 25,000 residents of these sprawling, unregulated communities live in substandard housing, vulnerable to floods and the strong winds still swirling in the storm’s wake.

Similar conditions accompanying 1998’s Tropical Storm Charley wrought havoc in border communities further northwest in Del Rio, Texas, killing 18 people and pummeling their homes with 18 inches of rain.

About 30 minutes from Laredo, in the former colonia of El Cenizo, Webb County Deputy Sheriff Homero Rangel lifted his voice to be heard above the hubbub at the community center.

Rangel and other law enforcement officials were offering El Cenizo residents rides to shelter at a school in the neighboring community, Rio Bravo. About 30 residents had taken him up on the offer by Monday afternoon, he said.

“We take whoever shows up,” Rangel said. “But some of them are afraid that somebody might go into their houses and steal what little they have.”

In Laredo, a state of emergency was proclaimed by the mayor and scattered reports of flooding began to surface in the late afternoon. The storm’s peak was scheduled to hit the city by midnight.

At the La Posada hotel, executive secretary Lynn Jackamonis said that though wet weather is unusual in the dry Laredo climate, she felt well-prepared for Bret. The previous day, Jackamonis said, she had purchased candles, powdered milk and matches with her family. Though she said Laredo’s residents were calm, the grocery stores were cleaned out of supplies, including drinking water, in anticipation of the storm’s arrival.

“I think everybody took it very seriously,” Jackamonis said.

Bette James, coordinator for the Red Cross in Laredo, said the agency expected about 2,000 people to gather in local shelters overnight, when officials expected up to 15 inches of rain.

“This is a very dry desert type of area, not used to a lot of rainfall,” James said. “So it ponds very quickly. We really won’t know exactly what we’re looking at, and how fast it comes through, until this all hits.”