Published: September 12, 2008 12:27 am      

Ike getting closer

GREENVILLE — As of Thursday evening, the remnants of Hurricane Ike were no longer expected to make a direct hit on Hunt County Saturday, with forecasts calling for the storm to move east of the immediate area.

“It has shown an eastward shift,” said Gary Woodall, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.

Even so, local residents should prepare for the very real potential of severe weather this weekend, especially Saturday.

“We feel like with it being such a large storm, portions of our area will still have some significant impact,” Woodall said.

And, even a glancing blow to the region could still wreak havoc, especially from high winds.

“Along and east of the Interstate 35 corridor is the primary area that will be impacted,” Woodall said.

Ike continued to grow in intensity Thursday and the National Hurricane Center was predicting that by the time the storm reaches the North Texas area Saturday afternoon, it could still be at tropical storm, if not minimal hurricane, strength.

As such, Hunt County and almost all of North Texas were placed under both a flash flood watch and a tropical storm wind watch, due to the dangers which Ike could still possess.

The good news? Once Ike makes landfall near Houston early Saturday morning, he is not expected to hang around very long.

“It will be moving pretty quickly to the north once it makes landfall,” Woodall said.

The bad news? Even a fast hurricane can still cause a lot of damage.

“There will be some significant wind impacts, with limbs and trees being blown down,” Woodall said. “We’ll probably see some fairly significant power outages if these occur.”

Woodall said the storm is certain to bring heavy rain to the area between Saturday and Sunday mornings.

“That rain is going to come down fast enough that flooding is something we are going to be concerned about,” Woodall said.

Jimmy Dickey, Consumer Services Manager with GEUS, the local electric utility system, said preparations have been made to restore power as fast as possible, should high winds, falling trees, blowing limbs or other debris snap power lines.

“We are treating this just like a potential ice storm,” Dickey said. “The trucks are gassed up and the chain saws are ready.”

Members of the Sabine Valley Amateur Radio Association established the group’s emergency command post in Commerce Thursday afternoon, next to the emergency shelter which has been opened to house evacuees who fled from the Texas Gulf Coast ahead of the hurricane. The Association’s Bob Galloway said the command post will be in operation 24 hours a day during the weekend, or as long as emergency communications are needed into and out of the areas affected by the storm.

An emergency operations center is also in operation around the clock in Commerce.

Members of Alpha Company, Third Battalion, 144th Infantry regiment of the Texas National Guard, based in Greenville, remained on standby status Thursday, in case the unit is needed for deployment in response to the hurricane.