Hurricane Nicholas makes landfall

Nicholas touched down along the Texas coast early on Tuesday with maximum winds of 75 miles per hour. It was downgraded to a tropical storm after it made landfall. The storm’s center is expected to move slowly over southeastern Texas, where it could bring up to 20 inches of rainfall, before crossing southwestern Louisiana on Wednesday. Nicholas is on the same path as Hurricane Harvey in 2017, though experts estimate the storm will be less severe.

How are states preparing? Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent rescue teams to Houston, where many fear flooding. Schools in the Houston and Galveston area are closed, and COVID-19 vaccination and testing sites have shut down. Meteorologists say Nicholas is moving slowly and erratically, making it hard to predict a timeline for the storm. Louisiana’s Gov. John Bel Edwards issued another state of emergency. More than 94,000 customers were still without power from Hurricane Ida as of Tuesday morning.

Dig deeper: From the archives, listen to Leigh Jones’ report on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey on The World and Everything In It podcast.

Editor’s note: WORLD has updated this report since its initial posting.