Schools closed, train derailed as hurricane pounds Mexico
FORECASTERS WARN STORM STILL HAS THE POTENTIAL TO UNLEASH DEADLY FLOODING
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Hurricane Willa crashed ashore in western Mexico on Tuesday, lashing the Pacific coast with powerful winds and heavy rain before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved inland.
The powerful storm, which was a maximum Category 5 hurricane on Monday, had weakened to Category 3 as it moved toward land.
Forecasters warned that the storm still had the potential to unleash deadly flooding and landslides.
However, storm surge levels were expected to subside over the course of yesterday and Willas expected to dissipate by the afternoon, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
As of 0600 GMT, the storm’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 75km/h.
Willa first swept over the Marias islands, where Mexico has a federal prison.
‘Up against nature’
The interior ministry did not respond to questions on whether it had evacuated the 1,000 inmates housed there or what other emergency measures were in place for the penal colony.
“We do not have any reports of damages there so far,” the head of Mexico’s emergency services, Luis Felipe Puente, told a press conference.
More than 4,250 people were evacuated from high-risk areas, including tourists who were on vacation at the beach, he said.
They are being housed in 58 temporary shelters.
At a shelter in Escuinapa, a town of 30,000 people that sits ■ in the middle of the storm’s likely path, residents fretted over their houses as they waited out the storm.
“Let’s just hope this is over soon so we can go home,” said Epigmenio Cardenas, 44, a farmer who was among the 2,500 people huddled there.
“You feel bad leaving everything behind, but what can you do? We’re up against nature,” he told journalists.
Many residents had boarded up their windows with plywood.
“They told us it was going to hit hard, and that we had to come here” to the shelter, said Maria Virginia Cardenas, 59, a cook.
“God, please just let back home unharmed.” us go
The Mexican army deployed troops to roll out a disaster response operation in the area.
In Mazatlan, a tranquil resort town with turquoise waters, the hotels that line the coast were largely empty as workers nailed plywood over the windows and built sandbag barriers to keep out the flood waters earlier in the day.
State of alert
As the storm moved over the town, drenching it in a light but steady rain, some hardy residents even went for walks or bike rides on the oceanfront avenue, the Malecon.
At its peak, Willa packed maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometres per hour, the NHC said.
It was expected to dump 15 to 30 centimetres of rain on parts of Sinaloa, Nayarit and Jalisco states, with some areas getting up to 45 centimetres.
The three states had already declared an alert and cancelled school.
In the resort town of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval on Monday ordered the evacuation of hotels and coastal areas, warning the storm could have “very destructive consequences.”
In Michoacan state, also on the Pacific coast, heavy rain caused a freight train to derail Monday in the town of La Goleta, injuring at least two workers for the Kansas City Southern rail line, authorities said.