Bo Howard looks out at the Gulf of Mexico at Cotton Bayou public beach as waves from Hurricane Alex crash onshore in Alabama on Wednesday. Bo Howard looks out at the Gulf of Mexico at Cotton Bayou public beach as waves from Hurricane Alex crash onshore in Alabama on Wednesday. (Lyle W. Ratliff/Reuters)

Hurricane Alex has reached land in northeastern Mexico, bringing with it heavy rain and powerful winds that slammed into surrounding villages.

The Category 2 storm made landfall at a relatively unpopulated stretch of coastline in Mexico's northern Tamaulipas state, about 180 km south of Brownsville, Texas, and was pushing inland at 17 km/h, according to U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The first named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season brought with it heavy rains and 180 km/h winds, forcing residents flee to the inland town of San Fernando on buses and in the back of pickup trucks, The Associated Press reported.

About 5,000 people were being transported away from the villages.

Residents arrive at a shelter for hurricane evacuees in Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas on Wednesday. Residents arrive at a shelter for hurricane evacuees in Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas on Wednesday. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters)

Mexican marines went door-to-door in the small fishing community of Playa Bagdad, trying to get residents to leave their rickety shacks.

STORM NAMES

Alex is a "male" hurricane, CBC meteorologist Johanna Wagstaffe says. Storm names alternate between genders, so Alex will be followed by Bonnie.

An international committee maintains a list of storm names for different regions.

Using short, distinctive names is "quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods," the National Hurricane Center says, adding that the use of names can be particularly helpful when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time.

The National Weather Service downgraded its storm warning for the Texas coast from hurricane to tropical storm strength. More than 1,000 people in low-lying Hidalgo and Cameron counties fled to storm shelters

In Brownsville, two tornadoes, sparked by the storm, caused some damage and flipped over a trailer. But no injuries were reported.

Early Wednesday afternoon, the state's Department of Public Safety ordered the causeway to South Padre Island shut down.

Alex was far from the Gulf oil spill but cleanup vessels were sidelined by the hurricane's ripple effects. Two-metre waves churned up by the hurricane splattered beaches in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida with oil and tar balls.

Residents along the south coast in Texas and Mexico's northern Gulf area have been preparing for the storm for days, with storm surges and heavy rain expected for some coastal areas.

Near the coast, the storm surge will be accompanied by "large and destructive waves," the National Hurricane Center said.

U.S. President Barack Obama issued a pre-emptive federal disaster declaration for southern Texas counties late Tuesday, and officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency said personnel are being sent to the area to help local and state authorities prepare for landfall.

With files from The Associated Press