The National Hurricane Center described Harvey’s sudden strengthening as “astounding.” The storm is expected to strike as a Category 3 hurricane — meaning with winds greater than 111 miles per hour — making it the most powerful storm to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Despite the increasingly alarming forecasts, officials in Corpus Christi as of Thursday evening had held off on ordering mandatory evacuations of the city, which includes a great deal of low-lying land and a barrier island. “I’m not going to risk our police and fire people trying to drag somebody out of the house if they don’t want to go,” Mayor Joe McComb said at an afternoon news conference.