Hurricane Willa dissipates, but evacuations continue, towns cut off

Mazatlan, Mexico — Emergency workers struggled to reach beach towns left incommunicado by a blow from Hurricane Willa, and the storm continued to force evacuations Wednesday due to fear of flooding even as it dissipated over northern Mexico. Thousands of homes were still without power.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or missing people, but the storm’s 120 mph winds damaged a hospital, knocked out power, toppled wood-shack homes and ripped metal roofing off other houses in the Sinaloa state municipality of Escuinapa when it came ashore Tuesday evening.

Nearly 102,000 homes in Sinaloa lost electricity after the storm made landfall, the head of the state electricity company said on Twitter. Service had been restored to about 62 percent of those.

The state civil defense office said the hospital’s ceiling and some other areas were damaged in Escuinapa.

The worst damage was expected to be in the handful of coastal communities that were cut off by road and without communications. Workers were trying to remove toppled power poles and trees blocking the roads.

In the farming neighborhood of Pueblo Nuevo, a halfmile from Escuinapa’s center, neighbors cried when describing how the wind swept up their tin roofs and wooden house frames while they sheltered under their heaviest furniture.

Ruben Avila and his wife, Juana, told The Associated Press they were disappointed that government officials had not yet arrived with help, as they sat among their scattered belongings under pouring rain Wednesday. Mattresses and remains of their belongings lay soaked on the ground.

Meanwhile, pictures on social media depicted plastic-wrapped mattresses supposedly donated to Sinaloa residents after the storm in the name of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the jailed leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. The Mexican drug lord was extradited to New York in 2017 to face trafficking charges.

In neighboring Nayarit state, Gov. Antonio Echevarria asked the federal government to send a helicopter, boats and rescue equipment. He said the state was trying to evacuate people in communities at risk of flooding. A government-run hospital shared pictures of a baby delivered in Acaponeta as the storm passed through.

Before hitting the mainland near Isla del Bosque, Willa swept over an offshore penal colony about 60 miles out in the Pacific. Federal authorities declined to comment on precautions that were taken at the prison, citing security concerns, but said the safety of inmates was a priority.

Willa peaked as a Category 5 storm with winds of 55 mph over the Pacific on Monday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm rapidly lost force and dissipated over northern Mexico Wednesday morning. Rain from Willa continued to fall across 10 Mexican states after the cyclone was downgraded to a tropical storm.

Concern about rains led Durango state to say it was evacuating 200 people threatened by possible spills from the Santa Elena dam. In Nayarit, the fire department urged residents in villages near the Acaponeta river to “evacuate immediately” as the river rose to dangerous levels.