Hurricane Watch Posted for Texas Coast

A hurricane watch was posted for the Texas coast on Monday as Tropical Storm Claudette moved toward the United States, news services reported.

The Texas coast from Matagorda, about 100 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, to Brownsville and south along the Mexican coast to Rio San Fernando was under a hurricane watch.

By Monday afternoon, Claudette's center was about 275 miles east of Corpus Christi, with maximum sustained wind blowing at 65 mph, 9 mph shy of hurricane strength. Claudette was projected to hit land at near hurricane strength late Tuesday in Willacy County, an area of primarily coastal prairie.

The latest movements of the storm mean that it would likely miss the biggest offshore oil production, refining and importing facilities. Most U.S. offshore production is located further north and east of where the storm is headed, Bloomberg said.

Over the weekend, several oil companies had evacuated staff from offshore oil platforms in the path of the storm as a precaution. Royal Dutch/Shell Group and ChevronTexaco Corp. curtailed daily oil production by 92,000 barrels and 70,000 barrels, respectively, according to Bloomberg.

The tropical storm swept over Mexico's resort city of Cancun early Friday. It caused flooding and closed the international airport for several hours.

Claudette is the third tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. It developed Tuesday in the Caribbean, brushing Jamaica's southern coast with heavy rain and rough surf, battering the Cayman Islands with waves and above-normal tides and scattering rain over parts of Cuba before reaching Mexico.

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