Category 4 Hurricane Willa barrels toward Mexico’s Pacific coast

MEXICO CITY — Mexico on Monday was bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Willa, which was downgraded from a Category 5 to a Category 4 storm but still expected to wreak havoc on the country’s Pacific coast.

The hurricane will gradually weaken but is still expected to be “a dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the coast of Mexico,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Monday.

Willa could produce a “life-threatening” storm surge, wind and rainfall accompanied by large and destructive waves, with a “potentially catastrophic” impact on western-central and southwestern regions of the country, according to the center.

The hurricane’s sustained winds were traveling at 155 mph.

It was expected to make landfall along the west-central coast of mainland Mexico on Tuesday afternoon or evening, the meteorological service said.

The states of Jalisco, Michoacan, Nayarit and Sinaloa started preparing protective measures such as evacuations and setting up temporary shelters.

The hurricane already has sparked heavy rains in Michoacan, where helicopters were flying above affected areas to see if help was needed, the state’s civil protection authorities said on Twitter.

In Jalisco, the authorities were prepared for “a safe and fast evacuation,” the state’s civil protection director Trinidad Lopez told the broadcaster Milenio.

About 2,000 soldiers and civil protection personnel were deployed in Nayarit. School classes were suspended in 11 municipalities in Nayarit and in seven municipalities in Sinaloa, according to Milenio.