CNN reports Hurricane Alex churned through the western Gulf of Mexico overnight, slowly picking up steam as officials in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas made preparations.
The Category 1 storm, which became the first June hurricane to form on the Atlantic side of the United States since 1995, is expected to make landfall Wednesday evening.
CNN reports that, at 5 a.m. ET, Alex was moving west-northwest at 7 mph, the National Hurricane Center reported. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph and was about 235 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas, and 175 miles east of La Pesca, Mexico.
President Obama issued a federal emergency declaration for Texas ahead of the expected arrival of Alex, the White House said Tuesday night.
A hurricane warning was issued for the Gulf Coast from Baffin Bay, Texas, to La Cruz, Mexico. A hurricane warning means that hurricane conditions and tropical storm-force winds are expected in the forecast area within 36 hours.
The storm continued to move away from the massive BP oil catastrophe near the Louisiana coast in the northern Gulf of Mexico, but it already was complicating cleanup efforts.
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