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National Guard gets ready for Hurricane Dean

About 4,700 National Guard soldiers and airmen were preparing Monday to respond if Hurricane Dean strikes the Texas coast later this week, Guard officials announced.

Another 5,000 soldiers and airmen were on stand by and ready for activation if needed.

At 8 a.m. Monday morning, Hurricane Dean was about 440 miles east of Belize City over the Caribbean and was moving west at about 21 miles per hour with maximum sustained winds near 150 mph, the Guard said.

Dean is expected to make its final landfall somewhere along the mainland Mexican coast on Wednesday. If Dean stays south of the border, Texas Guard officials are still concerned about the possibility of flooding in the region, the Guard said.

“We are still very concerned, even if the hurricane doesn’t wobble north into Texas,” spokeswoman Chief Master Sgt. Gonda Moncada said in a statement. “We are pressing on with our preparations and are still expecting the hurricane to have a major impact on Texas with flooding, especially in the Brownsville area, which is right on the border.”

There were no mandatory evacuation orders as of Monday, but voluntary evacuations were underway in Brownsville and Galveston. About 1,100 buses are available statewide to help with transportation and evacuation, and more than 300 Texas Guard members completed bus-driver training over the weekend.

In addition, cities that could be affected by the hurricane have received hurricane response ground force packages. Each package has a platoon-size element and 10 trucks, including a 2.5-ton, a 5-ton, a fuel truck and a wrecker. Aircraft from 17 states are already on the ground, with more than 10 troops assigned to each aircraft. Forty-seven helicopters, including CH-47 Chinooks, UH-60 Black Hawks and OH-58 Kiowas will be available Tuesday in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas, and C-130 planes from the Texas Air National Guard and other states are on call in case they need to perform air evacuations.

“If Texas is spared by the hurricane, then we will be very thankful,” Moncada said in the statement. “If not, then we are ready to respond.”