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Foreigners looking for a flight out of Baja, Calif., included Jared and Jenna James of Charlotte, N.C., who were awaiting news from airline officials at San Jose del Cabo airport on Thursday.
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico - Tourists fled hotels, desperately seeking flights home, and 15,000 residents of Baja California were ordered to higher ground Thursday as a slightly weakened Hurricane John bore down on the resort of Cabo San Lucas.
The storm soaked beaches on the mainland’s Pacific coast before turning toward Baja California, where it was scheduled to nick the peninsula’s southern tip on Friday. It was downgraded to Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 105 miles mph.
Officials were preparing to evacuate 10,000 people in Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo and at least 5,000 others in La Paz, the capital of the state of Baja California del Sur.
Shop owners boarded up windows and hotel workers stripped rooms of light fixtures and furniture, in case plate-glass windows were shattered.
Residents emptied grocery shelves of food and water, and endured long waits for gasoline. At the airport, hundreds of tourists battled for seats on the few planes heading out of the isolated peninsula. Driving out wasn’t much of an alternative — there’s only one narrow road, 400 miles long, leading to Tijuana.
No exceptions: Everybody out
“We are evacuating everyone,” said Mithza Velazquez, concierge at the beachfront Hilton Hotel in Los Cabos.
Before the downgrade, John was a Category 3 hurricane, packing winds of 125 mph and stronger gusts. The U.S. National Hurricane Center has forecast that the storm will make a direct hit on the resort.
“We are trying to evacuate as many guests as possible,” said Martin Guillen, spokesman of the Casa del Mar hotel, next to the Hilton in Los Cabos.
“We are trying to convince people that they should leave for their own safety,” he said in an interview. “The vast majority have changed their flights and are leaving today.”
Mexican residents of low-lying areas of Los Cabos will also be evacuated from their homes on Thursday, by force if necessary, said Jose Gajon, head of civil protection for the state of Baja California Sur.
“Those who do not want to leave will be taken away by the army,” Gajon said. “The number to be evacuated could rise.”
Most of the resort’s hotels have their own shelters where tourists could ride out the storm if they preferred.
Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo
In Puerto Vallarta, among Mexico’s most-visited resorts, officials scrambled to prepare 50 emergency shelters while sending patrols to hunt for possible damage from John. But tourists and residents stayed calm even as the powerful hurricane rumbled closer.
Officials postponed the arrival of a Carnival cruise ship, prohibited customary tours of the bay and announced public schools would be closed Thursday.
Some coastal communities in Jalisco state, where Puerto Vallarta is located, were being evacuated because of their proximity to two dams, state authorities said.
Residents in the busy port of Manzanillo, a favorite spot for U.S. and Canadian sportfishermen, boarded up doors and windows as John churned off the Pacific Coast.
But the storm was just far enough out in the ocean to spare them its full fury.
The center swirled northwestward off the mainland about 150 miles west of Manzanillo.
The hurricane center said John’s winds and rains were strong enough to cause life-threatening flooding, severe damage to property and mud slides in mountainous areas.
Rainfall of 6 to 10 inches, with isolated deluges of 18 inches, was possible along the coast.
Second hurricane off coast
Meanwhile, a new hurricane formed further west. Hurricane Kristy, with nearly 75 mph wind, was about 690 miles away from John, but forecasters said some interaction was possible. If that happened, Kristy would likely be absorbed by the larger John, forecasters said.
After slamming into Los Cabos, the storm was expected to spin back out into the Pacific, posing no threat to the United States.
In October, Hurricane Wilma smashed up Cancun and other beach resorts on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. It caused massive damage, sucking away large stretches of beach and stranding tens of thousands of tourists in makeshift shelters for days.
Mexico’s rescue services have vastly improved their hurricane response plans in recent years.
The busy tourist resort of Acapulco had sea surges of up to 10 feet on Wednesday. Seafront roads were ankle-deep in water and people struggled to stay on their feet in winds that knocked down trees.
