Mexico reels under force of Wilma
Foreign Desk Report

PLAYA DEL CARMEN (Mexico)—Massive Hurricane Wilma clobbered Mexico’s Caribbean beach resorts on Saturday, threatening heavy damage and loss of life as it meandered slowly into the Yucatan peninsula. Winds of 125 miles an hour (220 kph) howled in off the sea, knocking over houses, upturning trees and trapping thousands of tourists in cramped shelters. The storm was downgraded to a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, from a Category 4 on Friday and a record-breaking Category 5 earlier this week.
The calm of the storm’s eye settled over Playa del Carmen early in the day but the storm’s north eye wall was “really clobbering northeastern Yucatan,” the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in a 5 a.m. EDT report on its web site at www.nhc.noaa.gov. Metal sheets flew off the roofs of homes in Playa del Carmen and spun dangerously through the streets like Frisbees. The stalled storm battered the coastline for more than 24 hours and was due to hang over the area until at least Saturday night, raising the risk of disaster.
Authorities said there were no reports of deaths so far. “It’s a monster. It is roaring all the time,” said Guadalupe Torroella in the low-lying resort of Cancun, where the sea rushed onto the land and flooded international hotels. Wilma dumped 23 inches (590 mm) of rain on Friday on Isla Mujeres island, an unprecedented downpour for Mexico. “We are talking about a record hurricane as far as rain is concerned,” said meteorologist Alberto Hernandez Unzon. He said Wilma had an unusually wide diameter of 500 miles.
Mudslides caused by rains from Wilma killed 10 people in Haiti earlier this week and Cuba was reeling as the storm drenched the west of the island and unleashed tornadoes. Wilma was expected to begin hitting heavily populated southern Florida as early as Sunday. While forecasters expect it to weaken by that time, authorities in the Florida Keys ordered tourists out and were considering evacuating the islands’ 80,000 residents. Five flimsy homes had collapsed in Mexico’s Playa del Carmen but their residents were among the tens of thousands who had already fled to damp shelters. The town hall lay broken with windows blown out and furniture tossed onto office floors. Five prisoners escaped from a nearby jail into the jungle after a fence blew down.
The storm was expected to dump 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 cm) of rain across the Yucatan and western Cuba. Some areas could get up to 40 inches, U.S. forecasters said. “The Yucatan is really getting nailed on this,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center. “It will continue to pound that region for at least 24 hours.” Wilma briefly reached record strength out at sea earlier this week. All along Mexico’s “Maya Riviera,” thousands of stranded tourists huddled nervously in dank, sweaty gymnasiums and schools as the flimsy wooden beach cabins where many had been staying took a battering.
“When the boards blew off our window we decided to look outside and — oh my God,” said Gloria Winkles, a tourist from Texas sheltering in a small hotel in from the coast and looking out at raging waters in which a blue jeep lay half submerged. Sullen visitors grabbed sleep in damp shelters and played cards by candlelight. “The trouble is, you don’t know how long it is going to go on for. You don’t know anything,” said Swiss vacationer Christen Jasmin, 19, sitting in the half light in the dining room of a hotel in Playa del Carmen.
Cuba evacuated 368,000 people from low-lying areas as it braced for coastal storm surges and floods. Wilma became the strongest Atlantic storm on record in terms of barometric pressure on Wednesday. At 5 p.m. EDT on Friday its center was 25 miles. South of Cancun and roughly stationary, the hurricane center reported. A gradual northward drift should begin later in the day, it said. Wilma was expected to miss Gulf of Mexico oil and gas facilities but Florida’s orange groves were at risk. This hurricane season has spawned three of the most intense storms on record. Experts say the Atlantic has entered a period of heightened storm activity that could last 20 more years.