Closer to where Patricia made landfall, watchman Domingo Hernandez described an enraged sea that battered the Hotel Barra de Navidad, where he works, and scooped beach away from foundations. Puddles dotted the downtown district, but no more than a passing thunderstorm might leave. Patricia weakened to a Category 2 with maximum winds of 100 m.p.h.
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There were early reports of flooding and landslides, but no word on fatalities or major damage.
“The 1st reports confirm in that the damage has-been less than those expected from a hurricane of this magnitude”, President Enrique Pena Nieto stated in a taped address late Friday. As of Saturday, no deaths or injuries were reported and the hurricane’s strength had tapered off quickly.
Patricia landed 55 miles west-northwest of Manzanillo, home to the largest container port on Mexico’s Pacific seaboard.
Mexican and global tourists board a bus to be transported to a shelter while bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Patricia in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Friday. More than 10,000 tourists were evacuated from Puerto Vallarta in anticipation of the hurricane, El Universal said.It is expected to dissipate over Mexico and will no longer be a hurricane or tropical storm after Saturday. When the city was not feeling any major effects from the storm two hours after landfall, workers let them out to eat at a hotel restaurant.
The airports in Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo and Tepic were closed on Friday, but officials announced an air bridge on Saturday to ferry stranded travellers out of areas hit by the storm.
“I had the bad luck of being at the wrong place in the wrong time”, said Gian Paolo Azzena, a 26-year-old Italian medical school graduate at a Red Cross facility housing 109 people, including Americans and Canadians. They returned to their hotel later that night.
“It was pretty stressful for a while”, Tom Sokol said.
Roberto Ramirez, head of Mexico’s federal water agency, said Patricia was so strong it could possibly cross the country and head over the Gulf of Mexico to the United States. “I felt guilty for taking my kids here”.
More than a third of a million people were in the path of the storm. On Friday, figures from the Hurricane Center show Patricia had been moving towards Mexico with a central pressure of 880 millibars and maximum gales of 200 miles per hour.
Tropical moisture from Patricia’s remnants could also add to the torrential downpours that were already hitting Texas Friday, forecasters said.
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Patricia peaked at 325 kph several hours earlier – more powerful than the 315 kph winds of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,350 dead or missing when it struck the Philippines in November 2013.
