Hurricane Lorena skirts Mexican resort cities, moves up Baja coast

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — Hurricane Lorena spared the resort-studded twin cities of Los Cabos a direct hit, instead heading up the east coast of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula on Saturday prompting new warnings and watches in that coastal area.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Lorena was a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, and its center was about 55 miles east-southeast of Loreto, Mexico. It was heading north at 12 mph on a forecast track parallel to the coast through the Sea of Cortez.

It was expected to approach the northwestern coast of mainland Mexico late Saturday and early today. A hurricane watch was in effect for mainland Mexico from Huatabampito to Puerto Libertad, the hurricane center said.

For days, forecasts had predicted likely landfall in or a near miss with Los Cabos, but at the last minute the storm took a path well east of the glitzy resort area.

On Friday, residents and tourists in Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo hunkered down in homes, shelters and hotels amid warnings of damaging winds, flash floods and life-imperiling surf.

Police and soldiers went through low-lying, low-income neighborhoods in Los Cabos urging people to evacuate. Locals who have been through past hurricanes took no chances, pulling boats from the water and boarding up windows and doors.

Authorities in Los Cabos said 787 people had taken refuge at 18 storm shelters.

The storm kicked up strong waves in the twin resorts, but by early evening the clouds cleared partially and people ventured onto the beach to view the ocean.

Civil defense official Carlos Godinez said an American tourist who went to the beach in Los Cabos with his son died after being swept out to sea. The son survived. But Godinez said the death occurred early Thursday, before beach access was restricted, and that it was “not necessarily attributable” to Lorena.

Authorities in Los Cabos had closed the port and suspended classes for Friday and prepared to use schools as shelters if necessary.

Lorena came onshore a day earlier as a hurricane in the western Mexican state of Colima, whipping palm trees with its strong winds and lashing the area with rain. It flooded streets, washed out roads and touched off minor slides in 10 municipalities. Dozens of trees were downed, and power was knocked out in some areas.

Colima state Gov. Jose Ignacio Peralta said more than 7,400 acres of crops such as bananas and papayas were damaged statewide, but there were no deaths or significant damage to infrastructure.

A second cyclone, Tropical Storm Mario, was several hundred miles south of the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula and was expected to disperse by Monday.

In the Atlantic, meanwhile, Tropical Storm Jerry was forecast to pass “well north” of Puerto Rico and “well east” of the Bahamas today, but heavy rainfall remained possible on the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the hurricane center reported.

Jerry’s maximum sustained winds stood at 65 mph early Saturday. It was centered about 260 miles north-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was moving to the northwest at 14 mph.