Large Scale Evacutation of Coast, Offshore Oil Platforms as Hurrican Emily Approaches Cancun.
APJuly 17, 2005
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) - Mexico launched a massive evacuation of tourists from one of the world´s biggest resorts on Sunday as Hurricane Emily bypassed the Cayman Islands and bored down on the Yucatan peninsula, packing 150 mph (240 kph) winds.
Emily swept away four people in a car in Jamaica, police said Sunday, then made a jag to the south that spared the Caymans as it set course for Mexico. Two people were killed in a helicopter crashed on the Gulf of Mexico as more than 15,500 workers were evacuated from off-shore oil platforms.
With the Category 4 storm expected to land near Cancun on Sunday night or early Monday, a fleet of buses began to move 30,000 tourists in Cancun to temporary shelters, while 70,000 to 80,000 more people were being evacuated statewide.
Hundreds of tourists clutching pillows waded out of hotels in the twilight hours Sunday morning, waiting in a light drizzle to be loaded aboard buses bound for safer ground.
"It´s a little scary because it´s happening in Mexico," said Brittney Denhart, 23, a recent college graduate from San Diego. "If it was on U.S. soil, it would be a little more reassuring. We don´t know what the level of planning is."
Tourism and hotel association officials had said tourists would be relocated to ballrooms and convention centers in larger, well-protected hotels, but the first wave of evacuees was ferried to gymnasiums and government schools.
Hundreds of mostly foreign tourists lay shoulder-to-shoulder on thin foam pads in a sweltering gymnasium near the center of Cancun. They were given free bottled water and sandwiches, but many gasped when a hard rain rattled the metal roof of the building. Some asked how long they would have to stay in the confines.
"It´s hot in here," said Beth McGhee, 46, a tourist from Independence, Missouri. "We feel like we´ve been kept in the dark until this morning. But we´re safe, and that´s what´s important."
In Jamaica, torrential rains drenched the south coast and washed away at least three houses, while four people were believed killed Saturday night.
The four - a man, a woman, an infant boy and his 5-year-old sister - were driving through a flooded rural road in southwest Jamaica when a surge of water pushed them over a cliff, police said. They were searching the area Sunday to recover the bodies.
Although the Cayman Islands appeared to escape major damage Saturday, the area was devastated last year, as where a handful of other Caribbean countries when three catastrophic hurricanes - Frances, Ivan and Jeanne - tore through the region with a collective ferocity not seen in years, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.
Along the narrow spit of land that holds most of Cancun´s palatial hotels, workers scrambled to board up businesses and remove traffic lights that otherwise could becoming wind-borne projectiles.
Cancun´s grim-faced mayor, Francisco Alor, said the city was preparing for a near-direct hit by Emily.
"This hurricane is coming with same force as Gilbert," he said in reference to a notorious 1988 hurricane that killed 300 people in Mexico and the Caribbean.
Late Sunday morning, Emily was about 250 miles (405 kilometers) east-southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, approaching the Yucatan peninsula at about 20 mph (32 kph).
Hurricane-force winds extended up to 50 miles (95 kilometers) and tropical storm force winds another 150 miles (240 kilometers).
The last time Cancun faced a mass evacuation was 1988, when the city and surrounding resort areas were still fairly new and had only about 8,000 hotel rooms; that number has since grown to over 50,000.
Emily is expected to cross over the Yucatan peninsula before passing over the Gulf and striking again near the U.S. Mexico border later in the week.
On the island of Cozumel, just south of Cancun, tourists in beach-side hotels were moved to accommodations closer to the center of the island, which lies almost directly in the hurricane´s projected path.
Local residents also were expected to flee their homes to some of about 170 schools and community centers. Authorities said they had enough food ready to feed 60,000 to 70,000 people.
President Vicente Fox encouraged residents of the Yucatan peninsula to seek shelter and not worry about leaving property and possessions unguarded.
"That´s what the army is for," said Fox, in comments broadcast over national radio Sunday.
Tourists streamed out of the Cancun airport Saturday, and the terminal could close Sunday.
State oil company Pemex on Sunday was weighing whether to remove its last few hundred workers from oil platforms on the Gulf of Mexico. Strong winds downed a helicopter participating in the evacuation on Saturday night, killing a pilot and co-pilot, Pemex announced on Sunday.
The platform evacuations involved closing 63 wells and halting the production of 480,000 barrels of oil per day.
On its passage through the Caribbean, Emily´s winds ravaged hundreds of homes on the island of Grenada, killing at least one man there whose home was buried under a landslide.
Mexican authorities had evacuated some tourists from the mainland resorts of Tulum and Playa de Carmen, south of Cancun, in some cases sending them as far away as Valladolid, a Yucatan city 100 miles (160 kms) inland.
About 1,800 people were evacuated from the islands of Contoy and Holbox, just off the coast.
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