Hurricane Dolly (2008) were destroyed with hundreds more damaged, and the storm surge caused many boats to be brought onshore, some into homes. The Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, declared 14 counties in South Texas a disaster area. Insured property damage estimates are near $525 million (2008 USD) with total property damage estimates (based on a 2–1 ratio of total damage to insured damage) near $1.3 billion (2008 USD) in the state (with a large proportion of the losses being agricultural), and the Rio Grande cotton crop was expected to be a complete loss. After weakening to a tropical storm, Dolly spun off
Bertha Benz hope." In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially approved as a route of the industrial heritage of mankind, because it follows Bertha Benz's path during the world's first long-distance journey by automobile in 1888. Now it is possible to follow the 194 km of signs indicating her route from Mannheim via Heidelberg to Pforzheim (Black Forest) and back. The "Bertha Benz Challenge", embedded in the framework of the ceremony of "Automobile Summer 2011", the big official German event and birthday party commemorating the invention of the automobile by Karl Benz over , took place on Bertha Benz Memorial