Category 4 hurricane threatens Mexico’s Pacific coast

MEXICO CITY» A potential catastrophic Hurricane Willa swept toward Mexico’s Pacific coast with winds of 145 mph Monday night, threatening a stretch of highrise resort hotels, surfing beaches and fishing villages.

Farther south, Mexican officials reported 12 deaths related to heavy rains from Tropical Storm Vicente.

After briefly reaching Category 5 strength, Willa’s maximum sustained winds weakened some. But it remained “extreme ly dangerous” and was forecast to bring “lifethreatening storm surge, wind and rainfall” to parts of westcentral and southwestern Mexico ahead of an expected Tuesday landfall, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Hotel workers started taping up windows, and officials began evacuating people and shuttered schools in a lowlying landscape where towns sit amid farmland tucked between the sea and lagoons. A decree of “extraordinary emergency” was issued for 19 municipalities in Nayarit and Sinaloa states, the federal Interior Department announced.

Officials said 7,000 to 8,000 people were being evacuated from lowlying areas, mostly in Sinaloa state.

The hurricane was expected to pass over or near the Islas Marias — a set of islands about 60 miles offshore that include a nature preserve and a federal prison — early Tuesday.

Forecasters said Willa would then blow ashore in the afternoon or evening somewhere along a 140mile stretch extending from the resort town of Mazatlan to San Blas.

It was projected to weaken somewhat before hitting land but was still expected to be extremely dangerous.

The governments of Sinaloa and Nayarit ordered coastal region schools to close and began preparing emergency shelters.

Enrique Moreno, mayor of Escuinapa, a municipality of about 60,000 people on Willa’s track, said officials were trying to evacuate everybody in the seaside village of Teacapan. He estimated 3,000 were affected but he expected some would try to stay.

“The people don’t want to evacuate, but it’s for their security,” he said.