CNN 2010-07-06

And we begin with those heavy rains and tornadoes¹ that are pounding south Texas as Hurricane Alex comes ashore². The season's first hurricane actually made landfall in northeastern Mexico with 100-mile-an-hour winds. Alex has weakened and it's moved inland. It is now a tropical storm, but still got the potential to trigger flashfloods and mudslides. Alex is also having an impact on the oil spill cleanup hundreds of miles away. Aftereffects from the storm could keep the skimming operation from resuming until this weekend. South Padre Island, Texas escaped the brunt of that storm but still took a pretty big hit. Reynolds Wolf is there, Reynolds.

 

Well, Kyra, what we have here is still plenty of wind. The rain for the most part is gone. The waves continue to rock against the shores. Some of these things have just been monsters that have been coming along the coast here. The beach which used to stretch out towards the horizon, now the water is coming right up to the edge of these dunes³ covered by the sawgrass on which I'm standing⁴. This could have been far worse. This could have been much worse. What I mean by that is if this storm to make landfall about, about 100 miles to our south, in Mexico, if it had been out over the open water to the Gulf⁵ of Mexico for a couple of extra days, this could have been a major hurricane. To put things into perspective, plain and simple, this could have been, say, another Katrina, it could've been an Andrew, could have been Hugo, possibly a Gustav, maybe even an Ike for that matter. But it didn't. It came onshore. All things considered, the damage was minimal⁶. Here on the island, South Padre Island, there are times yesterday especially before it made landfall to the south but the water got up to about a foot in some places. There were a few scattered⁷ power outages back in Brownsville. They had issues with tornadoes. In fact, they had confirmed reports of two tornadoes causing minimal damage. Thankfully no injuries and there are reports of other tornadoes in the area which, believe it or not, not unusual when you have these tropical systems making landfall that rotation⁸, around the center of circulation, can pretty create a little bit of a twist in the atmosphere and cause some of those thunderstorms to rotate Heinsty -- the tornadoes that we get.

 

Flooding was a bit more of an issue over towards the Brownsville- Harlingen area. I can tell you the mayor there, the city actually put out some 60,000 sandbags so they were well prepared for it. Quite a few more power outages out there, but as we speak people are getting ready to get power restored.

 

I can also tell you that on the island, Kyra, the main bridge that goes across to the mainland, it was actually closed for two reasons. One, the winds exceeded 39 miles an hour which means no traffic either coming on or off the island.  But there's a little something extra that happened. There were two light poles right in the very middle of the island, both of them pushed over by the wind. That blocked traffic and could have gone either way, could have gone back and forth⁹ anyway.  They were able to clear it now. Both lanes. Now the bridge is open so people will be coming over to see what's left of the island. And again, things here, all things considered, they are fine. Few places here and there, and some of the buildings, we had some tiles knocked out. Few places where, of course, we've had a little bit of sign damage. But other than that, they really lucked out. No question.  Much better than how they fared back in 2005 or rather 2008, 2008, with Hurricane Dolly. Cat 2 made a direct hit on South Padre Island. Let's send it back to you

1 tornadoes   

n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Tornadoes, severe earthquakes, and plagues create wide spread havoc. 龙卷风、大地震和瘟疫成普遍的毁坏。 来自互联网
• Meteorologists are at odds over the working of tornadoes. 气象学者对龙卷风的运动方式看法不一。 来自互联网

2 ashore   

adv.在(向)岸上，上岸

参考例句：

• The children got ashore before the tide came in.涨潮前，孩子们就上岸了。
• He laid hold of the rope and pulled the boat ashore.他抓住绳子拉船靠岸。

3 dunes   

沙丘( dune的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The boy galloped over the dunes barefoot. 那男孩光着脚在沙丘间飞跑。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat. 将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

6 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。

7 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

8 rotation   

n.旋转；循环，轮流

参考例句：

• Crop rotation helps prevent soil erosion.农作物轮作有助于防止水土流失。
• The workers in this workshop do day and night shifts in weekly rotation.这个车间的工人上白班和上夜班每周轮换一次。

9 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。