Hurricane
Patricia, which meteorologists say is the strongest hurricane ever
recorded in the Western Hemisphere, was expected to make landfall in
southern Mexico on Friday afternoon.
Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center, said that it was a Category 5 storm, which means it is likely to inflict catastrophic damage and leave the areas it hits uninhabitable for weeks or months.
The World Meteorological Organization warned that the hurricane’s strength is comparable to that of Typhoon Haiyan, which caused devastation in the Philippines in 2013.
The
city of Puerto Vallarta and some of Mexico’s most popular resorts are
in the path of the storm, which, on Friday, had maximum sustained winds
of 200 miles per hour. Flooding and landslides are expected near coastal
areas, and officials are warning that storm surges could cause waves of
up to 39 feet, according to The Weather Channel.
Tourists and residents in Puerto Vallarta awoke to a light drizzle on Friday morning. By midmorning, there was an eerie calm.
Airports
in Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta were closed, and buses roared out of
stations bound for Guadalajara jammed with people racing ahead of the
storm. But with no way out, many tourists prepared to hunker down and
wait out the storm in hotel shelters. At the Grand Mayan Hotel, staff
members prepared the service area farthest from the sea and told guests
to report at 1 p.m.
Mr.
Feltgen said that the storm had grown in the ideal environment: low
wind shear, which essentially means that winds did not push the storm
apart, and warm water. The Weather Channel said there had been a record number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes this year, with 22 in the Northern Hemisphere alone.
Mexican officials have declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco States, The Associated Press reported.
Photo
Hurricane Patricia was designated a Category 5 storm and is heading toward southern Mexico.Credit
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
In the United States, only three Category 5 storms that made landfall have been recorded, Mr. Feltgen said: a 1935 hurricane that killed more than 400 people; Hurricane Camille, which hit Mississippi and killed 244 people in 1969; and Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, killing at least 10 people there and three others in the Bahamas.
But Hurricane Patricia is “uncharted territory,” Jim Cantore, a meteorologist with The Weather Channel, said on Twitter.
“All
the precautions to protect life and property should be completed now,”
Mr. Feltgen said, adding, “People need to be in a safe place and stay
hunkered down until this storm is over.”
On Friday, posts on Instagram showed people leaving Puerto Vallarta and heading for the airport. One user posted a photograph of a message from a nearby resort that warned people to return home for their safety.
“If this is not possible, please wait for further instructions for a possible evacuation,” the notice read.
Posts by another user showed
passengers standing in line and aboard an airplane at the Licenciado
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport in Puerto Vallarta. Another
user appeared to opt to stay behind and posted a photograph of an apartment with boarded-up windows.
Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City
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