Rain is expected to be soaking Vicksburg and Warren County during the latter part of the week as the remnants of Hurricane Harvey begin moving northeast and away from the Texas Gulf Coast.

“It looks like Harvey is going back out in the Gulf along the Texas Coast,” said Thomas Winesett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Jackson. “It’s forecast to move north to east along the Texas coast and hold steady at tropical storm force before making a third landfall between Houston and Beaumont.

“It will then track northeast from there, through portions of Louisiana and into eastern Arkansas in the middle of the week.”

Winesett said the present forecast appears to put the storm’s actual center west of Warren County.

“We’re not expecting any strong sustained winds, but it could be a little gusty at times, but it shouldn’t be anything too bad.

“The heaviest rain totals look to stay right along where the low’s center is, just to the west will be higher amounts. We could see some rain as early as tomorrow, but the heavy stuff will be kind of be late in the week.”

Predictions call for totals of 2 to 4 inches with higher totals possible locally. There is also the possibility of a brief isolated tornado, Winesett said.

“Right now, it looks like another rain event,” Warren County Emergency Management Agency director John Elfer said. “I’m just going to prepare as if we were going to have some flash flooding, and that’s what everybody else is planning.”

Elfer said he has met with city and county emergency response agencies and private agencies.

“I want to remind people to please do not attempt to drive your vehicle through flooded roads and streets, and avoid those low-lying areas that are flood prone.”

Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane with 135 mile per hour winds, and heavy rain. The storm so far has dumped more than 30 inches of rain on Houston, Texas, with another 24 inches of rain expected.

Vicksburg resident Joe Bonelli who takes treatment for cancer at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he has seen Internet and Facebook accounts of about 4 feet of water in the lobby of the building where he receives his treatments.

He said he has reached out to friends in the Houston area, offering them his home for shelter. Most of them, he said, sent emails and texts that they were safe.

“They’re my dove hunting buddies; they come here to go dove hunting. I don’t think they’ll be coming here this year for dove season,” he said. “They’re going to be occupied.”