Storm Hanna, the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic season, was forecast to make landfall on the Texas coastline on Saturday, threatening a person of the nation’s COVID-19 warm spots with storm surge and flooding.

Hanna was about 75 miles (120 km) east-northeast of Port Mansfield, Texas, packing utmost sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center stated on Saturday morning.

“Additional strengthening is forecast prior to Hanna makes landfall afterwards currently,” the Miami-centered forecaster reported, adding that the hurricane will quickly weaken immediately after it moves inland.

Online video footage on Twitter of Port Aransas in Nueces County, Texas confirmed grey skies and lashing waves that had previously engulfed a seashore in advance of the storm’s landfall.

The storm was projected to strike the coastline amongst Corpus Christi and Brownsville, a location that has struggled to incorporate outbreaks of COVID-19 in the latest weeks. Situations alongside the state’s coast have soared into the tens of hundreds, and extra than 400 folks in Corpus Christi’s metropolis of 325,000 had been hospitalized with the novel coronavirus on Friday, according to metropolis information.

On Friday, inhabitants in many Texas communities in Kleberg County, south of Corpus Christi, were being urged to evacuate their residences in advance of Hanna’s arrival.

Corpus Christi Mayor Joe McComb warned citizens

Corpus Christi Mayor Joe McComb warned people who stay in flood-vulnerable places to heed coronavirus precautions when choosing to evacuate, the Texas Tribune noted.

“Just take numerous masks with you because you could be there a pair times if you are in a flood area,” McComb claimed, in accordance to the Tribune. “We don’t want to expose any one in the course of this storm. … Even when you’re in the house, I endorse wearing a mask if you’re in crowded problems.”

Hanna will be the next named storm this period to make landfall alongside the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, right after Tropical Storm Cristobal, which strike Louisiana in early June. Hanna could carry a life-threatening storm surge and flash flooding, with up to 15 inches of rain in pockets of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico.

The storm is not predicted to affect offshore oil and gasoline output. Electricity providers have not evacuated personnel or shut down production from their Gulf of Mexico platforms since of Hanna.