Hurricane Newton swirled toward Mexico’s popular northwestern resorts of Los Cabos on Monday, prompting authorities to close schools and airports two years after a powerful storm pummeled the region.
The US National Hurricane Center warned that “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion” in parts of the Baja California peninsula.
The center said that Newton was packing top winds of 140kph as it churned about 260km southeast of Cabo San Lucas.
Photo: EPA
The government of the state of Baja California Sur opened several shelters with room for 16,000 people after the tropical storm became a hurricane.
About 15,000 tourists were in the region, mostly in Los Cabos, according to Baja California Sur Secretary of Tourism Genaro Ruiz Hernandez, who late on Monday announced that all flights were canceled in the state.
Authorities also closed ports to small boats in Baja and other parts of the Pacific coast.
The Mexican government issued hurricane warnings for the west coast of the state of Baja California Sur as well as Cabo San Lucas in its southern tip, a favored destination of US tourists.
Los Cabos was pummeled in September 2014 by Hurricane Odile, which left six people dead, stranded tourists and caused US$1 billion in damage.
Newton was expected to pick up more steam before making landfall yesterday, US forecasters said.
The storm is due to produce up to 25cm of rain in several Pacific coast states, which could trigger life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, the center said.
A “dangerous” storm surge was expected to cause significant coastal flooding, it added.
Newton threatened to cause more mudslides and flooding in eight states along the Pacific coast, Mexican authorities said, adding that thousands of shelters were readied.
The weather system already caused damage in the south over the weekend before it became a tropical storm, with heavy rains blamed for three deaths in the southern state of Chiapas.
Floods and landslides damaged or affected about 70 homes and schools and trapped about 200 people in Acapulco, a resort in the southwestern state of Guerrero.
Torrential rains that began on Saturday morning flooded about 1,400 homes and caused more than 30 landslides on roads in Guerrero, civil protection authorities said.
Heavy rainfall trapped about 200 people in a housing complex, prompting air evacuations by police, marines and the army.
While western Mexico was getting hammered with precipitation, the US was spared the worst when Tropical Storm Hermine crashed ashore in Florida — a hurricane at the time — before moving out to sea.
The hurricane center warned that the post-tropical cyclone would cause a storm surge and tide that could flood normally dry areas in the northeastern US.
Hermine packed sustained winds of 113kph, but it was expected to weaken late yesterday. Tropical storm warnings were issued in Long Island and parts of the northeastern states of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Hermine killed two people after striking Florida on Friday before weakening to tropical storm status as it moved north off the US East Coast.
It was Florida’s first hurricane landfall since 2005, causing street flooding and power outages.
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