Thousands of residents throughout Cameron County braved the windy weather on Saturday morning to exit their homes and pick up free sandbags in several distributions points throughout the area as Hurricane Hanna was expected to bring heavy rains and flooding to the Rio Grande Valley during the weekend.
Hanna was expected to make landfall Saturday afternoon as a Category One hurricane in the vicinity of Baffin Bay. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 p.m. today for all Deep South Texas including the Valley.
Cameron County started distributing sandbags Friday morning and continued from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday at the following locations :
>> Commissioner Precinct 1 Warehouse: 2050 S. Browne Ave., in Brownsville.
>> Commissioner Precinct 2 Warehouse: 7092 Old Alice Road, in Brownsville.
>> Commissioner Precinct 3 Warehouse: 26945 FM 510, in San Benito.
>> Commissioner Precinct 4 Warehouse: 2663 White Ranch Road, La Feria.
The City of Brownsville also distributed sandbags at the Event Center Saturday at the same time but ran out minutes before 10 a.m. with dozens of residents making their way in their vehicles through the center trying to find the distribution point.
The recommendations for the storm remain in place until 7 p.m. today and include making sure batteries are fully charged for all electronic devices, especially medical. Cameron County issued a declaration of disaster to be prepared earlier this week and also prepositioned pumps in areas that are prone to flooding and activated all of their high-profile vehicles to be on standby.
