Alex strengthened into the first hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season as it churned northwest across the southwest Gulf of Mexico and took aim at the Mexico-Texas border, the National Hurricane Center said late Tuesday.
The storm was tracking far south and west of the BP oil spill.Federal authorities said oil and gas operators in the Gulf were beginning to evacuate platforms and rigs in the storm's path which would take it far southwest of the region affected by the BP spill.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement said that, based on reports Tuesday morning, 28 of 634 manned production platforms and three of 51 drilling rigs have been evacuated. The bureau estimated that nearly one-quarter of the Gulf's oil production and more than 9 percent of its natural gas production had been halted.