CANCUN, Mexico (16 July 2005) -- Mexico was braced for one of its worst storms in years as violent Hurricane Emily howled toward popular Caribbean resorts around Cancun on Sunday, packing winds of up to 155 mph (250 kph). The second major hurricane of the season, arriving just days after Hurricane Dennis ripped through Cuba and Florida, Emily was due to pass over the tiny Cayman Islands early Sunday and smash into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula during the evening. As it tore westward through the Caribbean, forecasters said Emily was on the verge of blowing into a rare and deadly Category 5 hurricane on the five-step scale of intensity, a level of storm capable of destroying buildings. With local authorities on standby to evacuate the entire Yucatan coast if necessary, some 40,000 tourists were due to leave the area early on Sunday, many taking the last flights out of Cancun as airlines began packing up. Some 30,000 tourists fled the day before, out of a total of 130,000 holidaymakers initially in the state of Quintana Roo. Cancun was in turmoil on Saturday night as thousands of tourists evacuated from the resort islands of Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, or brought in from flimsy cabana resorts further down the coast, fought over rooms in sturdy hotels. "I'm not happy about this situation," complained American pilot Roland Perr as he was turned away by the third Cancun hotel in a row, after being brought to shore from the backpacker paradise of Isla Mujeres earlier in the day. He planned to head south to Central America with his wife first thing on Sunday to finish their vacation. Tourists unable to leave the area were told to relocate on Sunday to 25 Cancun hotels inland from the coast and earmarked as being the most likely to withstand hurricane-force winds. Local business owners were wincing at the thought of the damage Emily could do to a local economy that is one of the richest in Mexico thanks to a year-round influx of tourists. Emily skirted past Jamaica some 100 miles off the south coast but the torrential rains and howling winds trailing it were easily enough to trigger flooding and mudslides. LULL BEFORE THE STORM Cancun was still only feeling a light breeze as the city went to bed on Saturday night. Some locals had no idea a hurricane was approaching until reporters told them. But coastal fishing communities were evacuated early on Saturday and almost all the tourists on Isla Mujeres and the upscale scuba-diving island of Cozumel were brought inland. | | Hurricane Emily strike probability - Click graphic to enlarge As local radio broadcast the hurricane warning, shops and bars boarded up windows, thousands of troops were on standby for rescue drills, and schools and sports centers were converted into emergency shelters with space for tens of thousands of people. Local people piled into supermarkets to stock up on canned food and water and health authorities stockpiled medicine to treat possible infections caused by flooding. Motorists lined up for fuel, fearing a disruption to supplies. Long-term residents feared a repeat of Hurricane Gilberto, which tore up Cancun in 1988, razing homes and scarring beaches. The worst hurricane since then was Isidore, which washed away beach huts, cut off power and destroyed swathes of jungle and mangroves in the Yucatan in 2002. Cancun's concrete hotels are mostly able to resist high winds, but thousands of Mexicans in the area live in ramshackle homes and the flat terrain offers little resistance to storms. With the sea set to be badly whipped up, state oil monopoly Pemex, a major supplier to the United States, shut 63 oil wells in the southern Gulf of Mexico, west of Yucatan, and evacuated some 15,000 nonessential workers from offshore oil rigs. The closures will hold back a quarter of daily output, although no shipments have been canceled, Pemex said. Tiny Belize, which borders the Yucatan Peninsula to the south and is known for its laid-back island resorts, upgraded its alert late on Saturday to a tropical storm warning. |
