Dean Not As Mean As Expected
By Alfredo Corchado, The Dallas Morning News
Aug. 22–CANCuN, Mexico — Hurricane Dean churned across the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday, missing the main tourist resorts and population areas before moving into the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s expected to regain strength in the gulf and strike again today in the heavily populated state of Veracruz.
Dean came ashore early Tuesday as a Category 5 storm, the strongest hurricane to hit the Atlantic Coast in years. It left flooding, some damaged homes and a blocked roads.
“As of now, we don’t have any report of loss of human life,” Interior Minister Francisco Ramirez Acuna said in Mexico City. “The next step will be to carry out an evaluation of the damages, but we can say that they have been minor, given the magnitude of the storm.”
On Tuesday night, Campeche Gov. Jorge Hurtado Valdes, said the city of Ciudad del Carmen was in a “state of crisis, practically inundated” by floods, but few details were available.
The storm had weakened to Category 1 as it headed toward the petroleum-rich Gulf of Campeche, where more than 18,000 oil workers had been evacuated.
But it was expected to regain Category 2 status and hit Veracruz state near Poza Rica about midday today, then move across the state for eight to 10 hours, officials said.
The state faces special challenges because of its large population of 10 million and its poverty, especially in mountainous regions where Indian families live in makeshift housing, officials said. Veracruz has a long history of mudslides and massive flooding.
“We know that there will be property damage, but we don’t want any loss of life,” said Enrique Fonseca Martinez, head of the state emergency center for the Civil Protection Ministry. “To greater or a lesser extent, this is going to affect all Veracruzanos.”
In high-risk fishing villages, all residents were being evacuated at least a half-mile from the shore, he said.
While coastal residents are accustomed to regular storms and are generally well prepared, “people in the mountains are not used to this and they could panic,” Mr. Fonseca said. Likewise, fear of looting means that the head of the household will often stay behind even as women, children and the elderly are evacuated to government-run shelters.
Emergency workers try to identify safe ground where those men can go “should they feel their house is about to come apart,” Mr. Fonseca said.
On a positive note, he said, rivers and dams in the mountains were at very low levels “meaning they can absorb a lot of rain.”
The state’s 22,000 schools will remain closed today and Thursday as a precaution.
Some 5,000 shelters, many of them in schools, were being readied Tuesday. Mr. Fonseca said the number of people who might seek shelter would depend a lot on what course the hurricane takes. On Tuesday night, early arrivers could number 10,000, he said.
A weakened Dean is then likely to move into parts of Puebla state, which borders Veracruz, and even dump some rain on Mexico City, where officials were carrying out inspections of problem areas for mudslides or flooding.
Bonfilio Mendoza, the chief spokesman for Puebla’s civil protection department, said preparations were being made to set up shelters and evacuate high-risk areas should that be necessary.
“We are prepared especially for rain alerts,” he said, adding that public service announcements would be made in several Indian languages in addition to Spanish. “It’s been raining, but that’s it. We don’t expect serious damage.”
As preparations began in Veracruz, Puebla and Mexico City, recovery began along the Yucatan Peninsula.
After going ashore early Tuesday, Dean left a trail of debris. There were hundreds of reports of minor damage but no catastrophes or fatalities confirmed.
Local, state and federal officials credited early preparation and the tough lessons of past hurricanes, including Gilbert, Wilma and Katrina. Officials also said the low-lying topography, which allowed the storm to pass through quickly, helped to limit damage.
Cancun Mayor Francisco Alor Quezada declared the city “a clean slate” as he ordered the popular resort reopened.
Workers throughout the state of Quintana Roo, a mostly impoverished state, were busy Tuesday cleaning up in the aftermath of the storm. The worst-hit area appeared to be the state capital of Chetumal, a city of some 150,000 just south of where Dean made landfall at about 3:30 a.m. Roads leading to Chetumal were blocked and some old buildings crumbled, according to radio reports. But by late Tuesday afternoon, the airport had reopened as it prepared to welcome Mr. Calderon for a full assessment of the damage.
Shortly after arriving from a summit meeting in Canada with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mr. Calderon was given a briefing on hurricane damage.
“Fortunately, from what one can gather from initial reports, given the virulence of the hurricane, the damage was less than what was estimated at the beginning, thank God, and also thank the fortunate prevention work that was done,” Mr. Calderon said. He then left the airport in a motorcade to assess the damage in Chetumal first hand.
On the road heading south out of Cancun, workers Tuesday afternoon were busy cleaning debris, clearing uprooted trees and branches strewn on the muddied road.
One man worked on his home’s battered roof and waved, shouting, “We’re fine, thank God.”
Nearby, sanitation worker Javier Avila added, “This could have been so much worse. We have been spared, but the hurricane season has just begun. Next time we may not be so lucky.”
As the day wore on, it became clear that the storm, though monstrous in size, didn’t cause the devastation of Hurricane Wilma, which poured rain for three straight days and washed away whole beaches in Cancun in 2005. It left seven people dead and caused more than $2.6 billion in damages.
“The Mayan Gods were with us, this time,” said firefighter Raul Rodriguez Acosta, 32, as he surveyed Cancun’s main strip following a sleepless night caused by Dean’s howling winds and roaring waves.
At 4:30, a ban on liquor was lifted and tourists made a beeline for the local bars.
“It wasn’t as bad as the mainstream media made it out to be,” said tourist Cedric Dotson, 50, a residential counselor for the mentally handicapped in San Francisco. “But then again how often do you get a Category 5 and nothing major happens? That was amazing.”
Even before the waters resided, clouds parted and palm trees stopped swaying, more than 600 new tourists had arrived, slapping on suntan lotion and slipping into their swimsuits. The tourism resort was eager to return to the business of showing visitors a good time. One sign simply read, “Bye, Bye Dean.”
Staff writer Laurence Iliff and news assistant Javier Garcia in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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