Hurricane Dean bashed onto southern end of the Yucatan Peninsula as a massive Category 5 storm early Tuesday morning, battering the landscape with 160 mph winds as it coursed across a lightly populated area close to the Belize border.

It was the first Category 5 storm to make landfall in the Atlantic Basin since Hurricane Andrew, which devastated towns south of Miami in 1992. Trackers at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Dean registered the third lowest pressure at landfall — a measure that indicates the intensity of the storm — ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin, trailing only Hurricane Gilbert of 1988 and an unnamed storm in 1935.Source:washingtonpost.com

The storm swept on land at 3:30 a.m., near the cruise port of Costa Maya. There was no immediate word of injuries or damage.

In the small towns along the Yucatan’s southern tip, Mexicans awoke Tuesday morning to trees toppled onto cars and broken windows. But they also were feeling fortunate. Hurricane Dean, which avoided direct hits with Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, also steered away from Felipe Carrillo Puerto and from most other populated and densely developed areas.

In this relieved city, the sun came out just before 11 a.m. eastern time, the clouds cleared and Mayeli Can, a 24-year-old woman who is 5-months pregnant, was smiling.

“I was sick about it last night when we lost power and we couldn’t watch the television, but I was sure we were safe,” Can said as she walked through this town of 17,000 with a toddler.

Law enforcement officers, though, are still anxious. They’ve tentatively begun to venture into dozens of small villages where thousands of campesinos refused to evacuate. Some sought refuge in caves that Mayan lore says are immune to hurricanes and floods. No one knows for sure how they fared.

In Mexico’s two most important port cities — Veracruz and Tampico — shipping magnates and industrialists were tensing for the arrival of Dean after it crosses the Bay of Campeche and resumes major hurricane strength. Workers at the Crowne Plaza Hotel spent the morning filling sandbags in anticipation of Dean’s predicted arrival on Wednesday. But many residents watched the promising news from the Yucatan and went blithely about their business.

“You know,” Alfonso Morales, a Veracruz sanitation worker, said, “these storms never hurt us.”

Mexican President Felipe Calderon cut short his summit meeting in Canada with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and announced plans to tour hurricane-battered parts of his country. And in Dean’s wake, Caribbean islanders sorted through broken glass and shredded roofs. Jamaica’s electoral commission postponed the island’s bitterly contested Aug. 27 general elections until the damage could be assessed.

The storm, responsible for an estimated 12 deaths in its journey through the Caribbean, lost power as it barreled across land and was downgraded to Category 3. But forecasters said it could well pick up steam again when it exits the west coast of the Yucatan and crosses the Gulf of Mexico on a path headed toward Veracruz. That could threaten some southern gulf oil platforms and raise the risk of mudslides in the mountains along Mexico’s east coast.

Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-run oil company, evacuated 18,000 workers from offshore rigs and other vulnerable facilities. The company said production would be reduced by 2.65 million barrels of crude per day, about 80 percent of its total crude output.

Mexico’s second-largest industry, tourism, also was reeling Monday after about 40,000 vacationers fled Cancun and surrounding Mayan Riviera cities such as Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. Federal police roamed streets and beaches usually crowded at this time of year. Cruise ships changed their routes, tourists canceled reservations and Cancun’s glitzy hotel zone emptied out.

Tourists had similarly fled the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, where Dean produced mudslides and shattered flimsy homes but did not cause any deaths. Eqecat, a risk consulting firm, estimated insured losses at between $1.5 billion and $3 billion in the Caribbean.

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Estas leyendo la entrada Mexico Breaking News: Eye of Hurricane Dean Slams Mexico Coast Martes, Agosto 21st, 2007 a las 17:29 y esta categorizada en Mexico News, Mexico Tourism, Yucatan Mexico. Usted puede seguir cualquier respuesta a esta entrada por el RSS 2.0 feed.

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