Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said the damages left by Hurricane Patricia “have been minor to those corresponding to a hurricane of this magnitude”.
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Most of the damage has been limited to fallen trees and flooded homes after around 15,000 tourists were evacuated prior to the mega-storm making landfall. Power has been restored to about half of those.
Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, both key cargo ports, were shut down as the storm approached. According to the weather channel, the category five hurricane was demoted to a tropical depression just 16 hours after it was named the strongest storm recorded.
Puerto Vallarta’s airport was closed overnight.
People snapped selfies next to a sculpture overlooking the sea and business owners swept sidewalks as they would on any morning. There were puddles downtown, but nothing more than a passing thunderstorm might leave. The other was an unnamed hurricane in 1959 that also made landfall near Manzanillo.
Thereafter, hurricane will be moving towards US.
He said the lack of fatalities was probably the result of the storm’s narrow footprint. Between Wednesday and Friday, the storm made a sudden, hulk-like transformation from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane.
Authorities reported that between four and 11 inches of rain fell in various parts of the country, causing flooding and mud and rock slides.
“We were lucky that the impact was diverted” toward the mountains, he said.
Earlier in the day, forecasters warned of a potentially “catastrophic” landfall. As of Saturday morning, Patricia is a tropical storm. Within 30 hours, it had become a record-beating Category 5 storm, catching many off guard with its rapid growth.
Hurricane Patricia has hit the western coast of Mexico, tearing down trees, sweeping away cars and forcing thousands of people to flee.
On Saturday, the storm was heading inland through the mountains in western Mexico.
Pier Luigi Vidale, professor of climate system science at Britain’s University of Reading, said the radius of Patricia’s maximum winds was extremely small at 12 kilometers, “so it fit very well in the space” between the towns of Campo Acosta and La Barra de Navidad.
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Even though it was weakening, Patricia was expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 20 to 30cm, with isolated maximum amounts of 50cm, over the Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, and Guerrero through yesterday, the Hurricane Centre said.
