Dean Arrives at Mexico's Gulf Coast

Hurricane Dean continues its rampage across Mexico.

According to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center, when it arrived on the Yucatán peninsula just north of the Belize border, Dean became the third most intense hurricane to hit land (with Category 5 intensity) in a century and a half of recordkeeping.

After leaving the Yucatán yesterday where it inflicted far less damage than expected, Dean battered Pemex oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as it picked up speed and headed northwestward toward the country's Gulf Coast.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said the closure of oil platforms in the Bay of Campeche-between the Yucatán and Veracruz-would cost Pemex, Mexico's national oil company, 2.65 million barrels of production per day until at least Friday. The Cantarell field there accounts for about two-thirds of the nation's output.

Dean made landfall again today, just before noon, near Tecolutla, about 40 miles south-southeast of Tuxpan in Mexico's Veracruz state. It landed this time as a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds of 100 mph.

Tecolutla straddles the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Tecolutla in the northern part of the state of Veracruz. Between the city of Veracruz (a famed Gulf port since the days of Hernan Cortez) and Tampico-a grittier port city 260 miles north-is a land of fishing, farming, and oil industries. There is a resort area north of the city of Veracruz known as the Emerald Coast.

Coastal residents in this part of Mexico apparently took Dean in stride, but officials warned of possible floods and landslides in Central Mexico. They are particularly concerned about heavy rains that could bring flash floods and mudslides to mountain villages already sodden from previous showers. Mexico City has been placed on alert for mudslides and floods.

As for the damage Dean has done to date, reports are still trickling in. While Dean previously killed at least 13 people in the Caribbean, including Jamaica, no deaths were immediately reported in Mexico, although details were sketchy from poor, flood-prone interior villages that have now been cut off from the rest of the world.

"It was a very strong hurricane, but we got off lightly compared to Wilma," said Rosario Ortiz, the interior minister for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, in a radio interview. Wilma, as you know, caused severe damage at Cancún and Cozumel almost two years ago.

Dean, too, has caused serious damage, particularly in small Maya farming communities in the Yucatán on the Guatemalan border. In the Costa Maya town of Majahual on Mexico's Caribbean, where Dean came ashore early Tuesday, hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and about half of the immense concrete cruise-ship dock there has reportedly been washed away. (Majahual is Mexico's second-busiest cruise ship destination, after Cozumel.) Widespread power outages were reported in Belize, which likewise, and thankfully, reported no deaths.

Best Regards,

Suzan Haskins
Editor, Mexico Insider
International Living

P.S. International Living staff member Glynna Prentice, who rode out the storm at a friend's home in Campeche, reported in this morning. All is well there, she said. While her friend's home lost electricity immediately once the storm began, Glynna's home did not. One phenomenon of the storm that Glynna witnessed was all the water being sucked out of the Bay of Campeche. "It was the most amazing thing," she said. "All the water was pushed out of Campeche Bay-we saw it! People were walking on dry land for half a mile out…" As soon as things get back to normal for Glynna, she has promised us a full report.