A strengthening Hurricane Karl roared toward Mexico’s gulf coast yesterday, forcing state oil giant Pemex to order platforms evacuated as a separate monster storm, Igor, threatened Bermuda with a direct hit.
Karl, the 11th named storm of the season, has already drenched Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and lashed the country’s main offshore oil platforms. It was forecast to make landfall later yesterday on the already flood-soaked eastern coast.
Karl’s sustained winds surged to 165kph and could approach major hurricane strength before the center reaches the Mexican coast, the US National Hurricane Center said in its latest bulletin.
Mexico’s national weather service said Karl was expected to crash ashore in Veracruz state around midday yesterday, possibly as a Category 3 storm.
Now a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, Karl was 155km northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, at 6am yesterday.
“Additional strengthening is expected,” the center said, warning also that the storm could trigger life-threatening flash flooding especially in mountainous areas.
“A dangerous storm surge will raise water levels by as much as 2m to 3m above normal tide levels along the immediate coast near and to the north of where the center makes landfall,” the center warned.
Mexico, already reeling from major flooding this month that left 25 people dead and affected nearly 1 million more, posted hurricane warnings for the country’s central Gulf coast.
Earlier, the center warned Karl could bring coastal flooding to parts of Belize and northern Guatemala.
Meanwhile, out in the Atlantic, dangerous Category 3 Hurricane Igor packed winds of 205kph, generating large swells that could cause dangerous surf from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands up the US East Coast, the center said.
However, concern lay primarily with Bermuda, where authorities of the British overseas territory home to about 67,000 people were warning of potential devastation if the eye of the storm passes close by as forecast.
“The island can expect tropical storm force winds sometime around midnight on Saturday and even worse conditions late Sunday around midnight when the current forecast is for a direct hit,” a spokeswoman for the Emergency Measures Organization told Bermuda’s Royal Gazette newspaper.
“Residents are advised to take the warnings seriously as the island has not experienced such an intense storm since Hurricane Fabian hit Bermuda in 2003,” she said.
Home Affairs Minister David Burch said authorities would “take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of our people,” and urged residents to make immediate preparations.
Lined up behind Igor was Julia, a weakening Category 1 hurricane out in the Atlantic with no current threats to land
The last time so many major storms churned in the Atlantic basin was in September 1998, when four hurricanes roared simultaneously, including Georges, which killed more than 600 people.
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