Hurricane Emily slaps Mexican coast, south Texas

By Noel Randewich

SAN FERNANDO, Mexico (Reuters) – Hurricane Emily pounded
the Gulf Coast along the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday,
driving thousands of Mexicans from their homes and knocking out
power in south Texas before weakening to a tropical storm.

The eye of the hurricane hit the Mexican coast about 75
miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border as a Category 3 hurricane
with powerful winds of 125 mph (200 kph). A Category 3 storm
can cause extensive damage.

Residents along the coast boarded up their homes and
businesses and headed for higher ground. There were no reports
of deaths or serious injuries.

Emily lost power as it moved over land and dropped to a
tropical storm later on Wednesday with maximum sustained winds
of 70 mph (113 kph), but forecasters said it could cause chaos
in the mountains of northeastern Mexico as it dumps torrential
rain.

“It is going to be a very dangerous situation. We could
easily see 15 inches (38 cm) of rain in some mountains areas
and that will cause flash floods and mudslides,” said Stacy
Stewart of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

In the town of San Fernando near the U.S. border, some
homes were severely damaged when the eye of the storm tore
through.

Hurricane veterans were surprised by Emily’s force.

“I have seen lots but this one is very bad. My little house
was flooded with water,” said Cristina Santiago, 77, at a
shelter.

More than 700 people crowded into the shelter. Wind howled
outside and rain lashed against wooden planking over the
windows.

By Wednesday afternoon, Emily was 80 miles southeast of
Monterrey, Mexico, a major industrial city.

Big waves and winds of up to 60 mph (100 kph) on the outer
edge of the storm pounded the south Texas coastline and 27,000
homes and businesses were without power in the state.

TEXAS TORNADOES

Emily triggered about 10 tornadoes in Texas, mostly near
Corpus Christi and Alice, but there were no reports of
injuries.

“Essentially we’re looking at a lot of wind damage, a lot
of power lines down, some roofs that appear to have been
removed and also some minor wall damage,” Cameron County
emergency office spokesman Remy Garza said.”

“Things could have been much worse,” he said.

About 4,000 people spent the night in emergency shelters in
and around the Texas border city of Brownsville.

In Mexico’s Tamaulipas state, at least 17,000 people were
evacuated to shelters, mainly from small fishing communities
along the coast. Many fretted over the fate of their modest
corrugated iron homes.

Only four rain-soaked dogs roamed the abandoned streets of
the fishing town of La Pesca. Residents had fled for shelter at
a nearby naval base.

Over 1,000 nests of endangered sea turtles, each with
dozens of eggs inside, survived the storm, due to
conservationists who fortified the nesting beaches with
sandbags and put most of the nests into boxes to protect them.

“They are on the dry side of the hurricane. There’s no
damage to the nesting beach,” said Pat Burchfield, deputy
director of Brownsville’s Gladys Porter Zoo, who works with
Mexican and U.S. groups to protect the Kemp’s Ridley turtles,
among the most endangered in the world.

It was the second time Emily battered Mexico. On Monday, it
crashed into the Caribbean coast, sending tens of thousands of
tourists and locals to shelters in beach resorts in and around
the vacation mecca of Cancun.

Emily killed five people in Jamaica in its swing through
the Caribbean as a Category 4 hurricane, and several people
died in Mexico in incidents indirectly caused by the storm.

Mexico resumed crude oil shipments from its ports along the
southern rim of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, three days
after closing down operations due to Emily.