(Accuweather) – Residents along the Texas Gulf Coast on Friday afternoon were bracing for a hit from Tropical Storm Hanna, which was looming about 230 miles east of Corpus Christi. Hanna was packing 50 mph winds and moving west over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico at a speed of 9 mph.

Tropical storm warnings were in effect across a large portion of the Texas Gulf Coast as the storm spun closer to land. A hurricane warning was also issued for Corpus Christi and surrounding areas, the first hurricane warning for this part of the Texas coast since August of 2017 before Hurricane Harvey made landfall.

AccuWeather forecasters predict Hanna will make landfall sometime on Saturday. “We expect the system to make landfall as a solid tropical storm along the central Texas coast sometime during the day on Saturday,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said, adding that near Corpus Christi is where the storm will come ashore, possibly about 45 miles south of there in Baffin Bay, Texas. READ MORE