Brownsville, TX - After Hurricane Dolly unleashed a fury of damaging winds and wicked rain on the US-Mexico coastline and diminished to a tropical storm, widespread flooding along the populous Rio Grande Valley became the top concern on Thursday.
Dolly, the first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season to make landfall, dumped up to 12 inches of rain in the first few hours after coming ashore at the barrier island of South Padre Island, where it ripped off roofs, snapped trees and left about 155,000 residents without power across the region.
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©REUTERS/Tomas Bravo
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A woman shields her baby from the rain after evacuating from a flooded neighbourhood in Matamoros July 23, 2008.
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Residents emerged from their homes and shelters to walk through streets littered with debris, toppled street lights and downed power poles.
"Everything is gone. Everything got wet," said Amber Acevado, who runs a flooring store on South Padre Island. "You stand here inside the store, you can see right through to the outside."