MEXICO & SOUTHWEST USA | HURRICANE SEASON
Hurricane Henriette threatens Baja & mainland Mexico
Hurricane Felix dumped heavy rain in Central America, causing flooding, landslides and at least nine deaths.
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico, 8:48 AM PDT -- Hurricane Henriette threatened Mexico's mainland today as it stayed on track for the southwestern United States, while the weakening remains of Hurricane Felix dumped heavy rain in Central America, causing flooding, landslides and at least nine deaths.
Henriette, which killed at least seven people in its run along Mexico's coast, struck Los Cabos at the tip of the Baja California peninsula on Tuesday.
Although no one was killed in Los Cabos, the hurricane remained dangerous, with top winds of about 75 mph and little change in strength before it is expected to hit the mainland coast near Huatabampo, some 300 miles south of the Arizona border.
From there, it was expected to weaken over Mexico's deserts and dump an inch or two of rain in parts of Arizona and New Mexico on Thursday night.
At 8 a.m. EDT, Henriette was centered about 60 miles west-southwest of Los Mochis on the Mexican mainland and it was moving north at 13 mph, the hurricane center said. Hurricane warnings were posted from Topolobampo in Sinaloa state north to Bahia Kino.
Felix killed at least nine people were killed, left 11 missing and destroyed thousands of homes when it slammed into Nicaragua's remote Miskito Coast on Tuesday as a powerful Category 5 hurricane and pushed inland, dumping heavy rains.
While Felix soon weakened to a tropical depression, officials in at least five nations were on alert for floods. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Felix could produce as much as 25 inches of rain in some remote areas.
Streets were deserted and a steady rain fell as dawn broke today in Honduras, where 27,000 people have been evacuated. A pounding, overnight rain caused flooding and landslides, blocking highways and destroying more than 100 homes, mostly humble dwellings along the country's remote Miskito Coast. No victims were reported.
"Thank God we are OK and nothing major has happened yet," said Jose Adolfo Mairena, a 49-year-old taxi driver in the capital, Tegucigalpa, where the storm passed overnight. "But we are still keeping an eye on things."
Honduran emergency official Marcos Burgos said the worst apparently was over. "We may still have flooding, but we don't think it will be severe," he said.
Nicaragua's government declared its northern Caribbean region a disaster area and was airlifting sheets, mattresses, food, first aid and other help to Puerto Cabezas, a fishing town near where Felix made landfall with top winds of 160 mph. Some 15,800 of the area's 60,000 residents remained in 76 makeshift shelters.
In San Pedro Sula, in northern Honduras, Margoth Reyes, 41, ventured out at daylight to check damage to her one-story home. "The important thing is that the family is OK," she said.
Nervous residents still remember Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which parked over Central America for days, causing flooding and mudslides that killed nearly 11,000 people and left more than 8,000 missing.
In Nicaragua, Felix slammed into Puerto Cabezas Tuesday with 160 mph winds, peeling roofs off shelters, knocking down electric poles and destroying or damaging some 5,000 homes in the region, which has about 60,000 residents and 12,000 homes,
At least nine people died. They included a man who drowned when his boat capsized, a woman killed when a tree fell on her house and a girl who died shortly after birth because the storm made it impossible for her to receive medical attention, according to Lt. Col. Samuel Perez, Nicaragua's deputy head of civil defense. Emergency official Ramon Tercero didn't have details on the other deaths.
Eight hours after Felix hit land in Central America on Tuesday, the eye of Hurricane Henriette struck Baja California -- the first time Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes made landfall the same day, according to records dating back to 1949.
A moderate, magnitude-5 earthquake struck the Gulf of California before dawn today near where Henriette was passing, but no damage or injuries were reported.
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