Humberto Becomes a Hurricane Faster Than Any Storm on Record
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HIGH ISLAND, Texas — A trailer can handle a little rain, and when Jerry Green went to bed Wednesday, a little rain was what he was expecting.
“By 10 p.m., I had heard that it was expected to fizzle out and go away,” he said.
The storm, initially expected to be not much more than wet, strengthened from a tropical depression to full-scale hurricane landfall faster than any storm on record: just 16 hours.
Hurricane Humberto surprised the Texas-Louisiana coast early yesterday with 85 mph winds and heavy rain that knocked out power to more than 100,000 customers, killed at least one person, and scattered debris along the southeast Texas coast. In the town of High Island, which took the biggest punch, three small trailers in Green’s RV park flipped over.
“Everybody else in the RV park left,”the60-year-oldsaid.”Iwould have left also if I had known what was going to happen.”
Jack Payton, 72, said he was asleep when the hurricane hit, knocking his High Island house seven feet off its foundation and tearing off the roof. A small tree from his front yard was blown in through his bedroom window.
“I won’t say I’m lucky. I’m blessed. I feel like if it wasn’t for the Lord, we might have gotten it worse than what we got,” Mr. Payton said.
