Texans brace for Category 4 Hurricane Dean

SAN ANTONIO -- Texans battled rain and flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin as Gulf Coast residents cast a wary eye toward powerful Hurricane Dean, which strengthened as it made its way through the Caribbean.

At least six people died this week because of Erin's thunderstorms. One person remained missing.

Dean, which forecasters said could threaten the United States by Wednesday, blew through the Caribbean on Friday with 100 mph winds, tearing away roofs and flooding streets as it became a powerful Category 4 storm.

Dean's winds strengthened to 150 mph early Saturday and was expected to steer next week into the Gulf of Mexico, with its 4,000 oil and gas platforms.

At 1 a.m., Dean was centered about 700 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 240 miles south of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was moving west at 18 mph.

Although forecasters said it was too early to tell whether the storm would eventually strike the U.S. coast somewhere, state officials were preparing for the worst.

Gov. Rick Perry declared the storm an "imminent threat" and initiated full-scale preparations. Fuel trucks were dispatched to coastal communities, storm-response task forces were put on alert and supply trucks and other resources were pre-positioned along evacuation routes.

"It's so far out, but it's not too early to start preparing," said Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. "We have more notice than with Erin. We're glad for that especially since [Dean] is projected to bring some strength."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency Friday and requested a federal declaration that would allow federal resources to flow to the state should Dean strike any part of the Louisiana coast.

Forecast projections showed a slim chance of the storm jumping northward toward Louisiana, but it was enough to put Louisiana emergency preparedness officials on high alert.

, given the weakened condition of the state's coastline since it was pummeled by hurricanes Katrina and Rita a little less than two years ago.

The storms in Houston killed three people: two died when a roof over a grocery store's storage unit collapsed. One of those was identified as store employee Daniel Whitt, 29. The third Houston victim was a trucker who drowned when his 18-wheeler went into a deep retention pond.

In San Antonio, a 19-year-old man, identified as David Alexander Diaz, was swept away by floodwaters after he got out of his car. His body was found about three miles downstream.

Searchers in Kendall County found the body of one of two people missing after their pickup truck was washed over a bridge and into a creek just as rescuers tried to pull them out, sheriff's Chief Deputy Matt King said. The victim was identified as Juan Ramon Zaragoza, 48. His son, Juan Pablo Zaragoza, 28, was still missing, King said.

Authorities in San Antonio on Friday found the body of a woman who was caught in high water Thursday night and carried two to three miles downstream.

Rains continued over much of Texas on Friday and thunderstorms were still in the forecast for Saturday. A police dispatcher in the West Texas town of Abilene said they had had about 50 calls for water rescues as rains fell Friday night, but added that there were no injuries. She also had recieved some reports of roofs damaged by the rain.

Summer storms have poured record rainfall across Texas and parts of Oklahoma and Kansas, with floods killing 22 people since mid-June. One July storm dropped 17 inches of rain in 24 hours and brought Texas out of a more than decade-long drought.

In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials warned 13,000 families living in FEMA trailers since Katrina that they must evacuate if Dean hits the Gulf Coast.

"Today people in Mississippi don't need to panic, but they need to think," Barbour said Friday.

Barbour said people should think about where they will go if an evacuation is ordered and how they'll travel. He said people should make sure they have fuel, water, and a source of communication if electricity is lost.

Hurricane specialists expect this year's Atlantic hurricane season -- June 1 to Nov. 30 -- to be busier than average, with as many as 16 tropical storms, nine of them strengthening into hurricanes. Ten tropical storms developed in the Atlantic last year, but only two made landfall in the United States.