Today’s anticipated arrival of Hurricane Patricia, a monster Category 5 storm, has residents of Mexico scrambling to brace for what forecasters say is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western hemisphere.
The Hurricane Center in Miami warned that preparations should be rushed to completion, saying the storm could cause coastal flooding, destructive waves and flash floods.
“This is an extremely dangerous, potentially catastrophic hurricane,” center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said.
Feltgen said Patricia poses problems for both Mexico and Texas. Forecast models indicate that after Mexico absorbs the majority of the hit and the storm breaks up over land, remnants of its tropical moisture will likely combine with and contribute to heavy rainfall that is already soaking Texas independently of the hurricane, he said.
“It’s only going to make a bad situation worse,” he said.
With maximum sustained winds near 200 mph (325 kph), Patricia is the strongest storm ever recorded in the eastern Pacific or in the Atlantic, said Dave Roberts, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, and Mexico will likely take the majority of the damage.
Patricia’s power was comparable to that of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 dead or missing in the Philippines two years ago, according to the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization.
In Mexico, officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states that contain the bustling port of Manzanillo and the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta. The governor of Colima ordered schools closed on Friday, when the storm was forecast to make what the Hurricane Center called a “potentially catastrophic landfall.”
Rain pounded Manzanillo late Thursday while people took last-minute measures ahead of Patricia, which quickly grew from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane, leaving authorities scrambling to make people safe.
At a Wal-Mart in Manzanillo, shoppers filled carts with non-perishables as a steady rain fell outside.
Veronica Cabrera, shopping with her young son, said Manzanillo tends to flood with many small streams overflowing their banks. She said she had taped her windows at home to prevent them from shattering.
Alejandra Rodriguez, shopping with her brother and mother, was buying 10 liters of milk, a large jug of water and items like tuna and canned ham that do not require refrigeration or cooking. The family already blocked the bottoms of the doors at their home to keep water from entering.
Manzanillo’s “main street really floods and cuts access to a lot of other streets. It ends up like an island,” Rodriguez said.
In Puerto Vallarta, restaurants and stores taped or boarded-up windows, and residents raced to stores for last-minute purchases ahead of the storm.
In Colima, authorities handed out sandbags to help residents protect their homes from flooding.
By early Friday, Patricia’s maximum sustained winds had increased to 200 mph (325 kph) — a Category 5 storm, the highest designation on the Saffir-Simpson scale used to quantify a hurricane’s wind strength.
Patricia was centered about 160 miles (255 kilometers) south-southwest of Manzanillo early Friday and was moving northwest at 10 mph (17 kph) on a projected track to come ashore between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta sometime Friday afternoon or evening.
Some fluctuations in intensity were forecast before then, but the Hurricane Center said it was expected to be an “extremely dangerous” Category 5 storm when it made landfall.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the Mexican coast from San Blas to Punta San Telmo, a stretch that includes Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta. A broader area was under hurricane watch, tropical storm warning or tropical storm watch.
The Hurricane Center said Patricia was expected to bring rainfall of 6 to 12 inches, with isolated amounts of up to 20 inches in some locations. Tropical storm conditions were expected to reach land late Thursday or early Friday, complicating any remaining preparation work at that point.
“We are calm,” said Gabriel Lopez, a worker at Las Hadas Hotel in Manzanillo. “We don’t know what direction (the storm) will take, but apparently it’s headed this way. … If there is an emergency we will take care of the people. There are rooms that are not exposed to wind or glass.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Wow, 200 mile an hour winds….. I thought they were still talking about Hitlery !
Just think is Mexico gets the worst of the Storm, Many of those business that went to Mexico may be damaged. or destroyed. I’m not wising anyone any harm but it would be nice if the American Businessmen that moved their business there are bankrupted, wiped out.
KARMA!!!! ????
Since America has approve gay marriage calamity will come upon the land…Jesus didn’t die to make sin legal…unfortunately we will all have to suffer the consequences…lord have mercy on us
wow, there is still people in Mexico
Where to start. Well ALL Ambassadors have direct contact with the 7th Floor of Main State of the State Department in Washington DC. This comes in two forms: one as Secure Phone, and what is called, Back Channel message system. Both system are supposed to be Direct to the Secretary of State, or their Deputy. (Or their assistance). The purpose of these systems is to ensure in emergency, that rapid decisions are needed, there will be no mistake that help or assistance will be provided to prevent what happened in Benghazi. In the 16 years affiliated with State, this system did just that. If the Deputy or their assistant failed to notify the Secretary of State, they should be fired. This is a fail safe system, because when used, the basement in the White House is also notified. A Navy Captain monitors that system. Again I say it’s a fail safe system and before the lies started rolling out of State and the White House, has been an excellent system.
Now, what should have happened. The Air Craft Carrier stationed in the Mediterranean 200 miles off the Syrian border, approximately 400 miles from Benghazi, should have been alerted to respond. Why they weren’t no one seems to know. The planes on that ship could respond, and in less than an hour. Choppers in a little more time. To the best of my knowledge these ships have seal teams on board. The president said there wasn’t time to respond. What he means is he didn’t have a tactical advisor that knew or was willing to provide tactical knowledge about the situation. What I’m saying is at the time of Benghazi, there were no leaders in charge of anything in the United States of America.
Despite your knowledge of the alerting system technicalities it would be impossible to expect an immediate reaction
to “street media communicated violence”. Hilary was not to blame.
She was the blame for irresponsible – no action! They (administratiion) knew for several months about on going terrorist activities. She was responsible for the lies following the event. She is not fit for the trust of political office!
Definitely not!!!
Bill Blair: Hillary certainly was to blame right along with Obama………mostly for the flimsy excuse that was finally admitted………Obama didn’t want anything to stand in the way of his running for re-election for the next couple of months. I watched every word of the hearing yesterday. There were proof of hundreds of e-mails from Stevens asking for re-enforcements and help. Hillary claimed they never reached her desk. Someone gave “stand down order” and it had to have been Hillary, Obama, Brennan.
I also heard the three men that finally made it to the compound under attack and after they decided they were going to ignore the “stand down” order and took off running, hoping to get to the compound in time. To late. None of our other military in fairly close could have gotten there in time but was never given the order to respond. Hillary was Secretary of State at that time and was also shown that the problem in Benghazi had been an on going trouble spot for a while and very unpredictable – knowing this there was very limited communication between Stevens and Hillary. Strange for the Secretary of State to be unconcerned about Benghazi under those conditions to the point of not communicating with
Stevens very seldom………that was another excuse she used was making sure the blame was always someone else’s problem. Of course, that is their game…….never take the blame for anything. That has been the stragedy with this administration from the very start.
Ralph, this was a cover up of running guns and shoulder missiles to our enemys. oboma was caught and Hillary is covering for him, there was suppose to be a prisoner exchange for Stephens and the rest is a history of cover ups.
Well put and well explained. We’re being led like sheep to the slaughter.
God forbid one of the Democrates vying for the Top Job gets in. We’re both 70 we’ve had to endure 7/8 years of the Obama Administration again God forbid we have to endure another 4 maybe even 8 years, more of the same repeated failures. On an equally serious subject, Putin is going to be laughing all the way to the bank. I say drill boys, drill. Unbelievable across the board….. Go Trump, Carli your our saviours!!! Carson’s a nice honest, respectable man, but a brain surgeon, really!!!
Okay, we know the issues. What’s the real solution and I mean solution. If you can’t suggest a real solution then your comments aren’t worth much. We already know the problem. Now let’s do something about it.
Ralph
I totally concur. It sounds to me like you’ve spent some time inside the State Department. I would take what you said one little step farther. Both Obama and Clinton had all the up to date information they needed to make the decisions they should have made. They were probably getting really tired of all the secured communications they had been receiving from Stevens pleading with them to send security. This wasn’t just negligence or poor judgement but willful destruction. But since the democrats seem to be in charge I doubt that the fall out from this hearing will make much difference. As I see it we are in deep
trouble.
I bet that Obama is already preparing his speech announcing the acceptance of 1,000,000 more Mexicans that will be welcomed as refugees of rain and wind!
Let’s make a deal then…… If we bring in a million new, then we get to deport Five million that are already here…They can all help with the disaster cleanup.
FWIW and $0.02 This has to do with Obama renaming Mount McKinley to Denali and the “Curse of the Zeroes”. I guess I will have to do a write up about how and why Obama did it to mock God. This goes back to the two record breaking F5 tornadoes we had a while back based on Bible numerics. God keeps punishing and warning, the woman of Babylon (aka USA) keeps ignoring God.
In the FWIW category, read Deut 28:12, our probation period expired for that August 2011 when Congress did “sequestration” and mocked God after being warned not to. Then God sent the stenographer to condemn Congress and warn taht God will not be mocked. Want to know about the CA and TX being turned into dry waste land and then have pouring raining turned everything into a mud pile, read the curses that follow for not obeying Deut 28:12 with our $18,000,000,000,000+ debt.
FWIW: Deut 28:43 is China, the Chinese that built our railroads are the strangers within us and they have become the head and we the tail.
There is much hyperbole in this press release on the storm Patricia. First of all it is not, I repeat NOT the most powerful storm ever, but a little guy pumped up for the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ news reports. Patricia certainly had extremely high winds….yes, 200 mph, but it was only 2 km wide packing merely about 15% of hurricane Katrina’s energy. Recall Katrina far exceeded 2 km. Once Patricia hit the coastal mountains it was quickly recategorized to a tropical depression. So much for the chicken little news reports.
Tony Favero
Half Moon Bay
You are so right, Tony. I would call this “The Mystery of the Disappearing Hurricane”. I wonder if those sadly mistaken meteorologists still have their jobs since they cost the Mexican Government and Tourist/Hotel Industry in Mexico a lot of big bucks with their big oops.