Residents of Mexico and the American Gulf Coast were still assessing the damage after Hurricane Patricia, the most powerful hurricane in the history of the Western Hemisphere, struck over the weekend.
Mexican military tries to reach residents stranded by Hurricane Patricia.
Patricia made landfall as a powerful Category 5 hurricane, having peaked at sea with winds up to 200 mph then coming ashore Friday evening with winds of 165 mph.
While Mexico for the most part was relieved that the storm caused no fatalities and only marginal damage in the resort of Puerto Vallarta and the principle port of Manzanillo, the sparsely populated zone of Pacific coast where Patricia delivered its fury is still only beginning to calculate the scope of the destruction.
President Enrique Pena Nieto said Saturday that 3,000 to 3,500 homes were damaged and about 8,650 acres of farmland were hurt.
But that was before anyone from the government arrived in El Rebalse, a town surrounded by banana plantations that Associated Press journalists tried to reach on foot before hitching a ride on army trucks.
A man salvages items from his flooded front yard after Hurricane Patricia hit the village of Rebalse, Jalisco State, Mexico. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Banana trees as far as the eye could see were snapped in half, and large bunches of the fruit moldered in the intense sun.
“They’re going to lose a whole year,” Santana’s husband, Artemio Sanmeron Sanchez, said of the plantations where everyone in town made their living.
Texas and Louisiana experienced widespread flooding, and parts of Louisiana remained at risk for tornadoes today. But at press time no U.S. fatalities linked to Patricia had been reported.
By Sunday morning, swollen bayous around Houston began to recede and closed roads reopened in Austin, revealing scant damage.
The same was true in Louisiana, where residents who have suffered through their share of hurricanes know that Patricia’s wrath could have been far worse.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
There was no hurricane. At most it was a tropical storm. There wasn’t even an eye of the storm. It totally dissipated 100 miles out over the ocean and the so-called “hurricane” was nothing but a cloud bank when it hit shore. The mega cane pictures we all saw, pictures which even got published in a few Mexican papers, were a hoax someone drafted on a computer. The real hurricane never looked like that, EVER.
Any category 5 hurricane of even a small size would have smashed both Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta in one whack, hurricanes are not thunder heads or tiny little weather systems that can selectively target a small village and die when they hit a lonely mountain in the middle of nowhere with no consequence anywhere else. The stupidity of the scammers fronting this hurricane lie is beyond the casual and well into the realm of insult.
THERE WAS NO “REMOTE REGION” FOR THIS HURRICANE TO BASH INTO AND VANISH. The “remote stretch of shoreline village victim” lies are pathetic, a major road goes right up the coast with very rich mansions and resorts dotting a huge portion of the coast between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta!
Your information is wrong, aaheart! I live in Puerto Vallarta. The hurricane made landfall about 135 miles south from here. We are sending help down for the poor farmers who lost their livelyhood. No fabulas homes between here and Manzania, just little villages and farms. This is not a fake hurricane! Come down and check it out yourself. Maybe you can join us in helping the people who took the bullet for us!!!!!!!