MEXICO CITY – Patricia, a storm that once carried the strongest hurricane winds ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, weakened rapidly as it slogged inland after strafing a lightly populated stretch of Mexico’s Pacific Coast where it toppled trees, bashed in roofs and swept away cars.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, struck cautiously optimistic notes in an update from a federal emergency center, but he warned people to stay in shelters as the storm continued to drop heavy volumes of rain and threatened to cause floods and landslides.
“With the information we have, and taking into account that the phenomenon is continuing, the damages have been minor for a hurricane of this magnitude,” Peña Nieto said.
Patricia, which at its peak was a massive Category 5 storm with 200-mph winds before making landfall, quickly tapered as it crossed mountainous terrain and withered into a tropical storm early on Saturday. By mid-morning, it had been downgraded further to a tropical depression.
On the coast, Jorge Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz, the governor of the state of Jalisco – where Patricia made landfall on Friday – said high winds knocked out power to several small communities and forced more than 1,000 people to take refuge in shelters.
But, “fortunately, I repeat, we don’t have irreparable consequences such as the loss of human life,” Sandoval Díaz said.
Patricia smashed into Mexico’s coast at 6:50 p.m. Friday, with 161-mph winds and gusts more than 180 mph, according to Mexico’s national meteorological service. It hit near the resort area of Cuixmala, 110 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, one of Mexico’s most popular vacation destinations, and 580 miles west of Mexico City.
The region is known as the Costa Alegre, which translates to the Joyful Coast is known for several high-end resorts. But large swaths of land in the area are protected coastal forests and are undeveloped or only lightly developed.
The storm kicked up 19- to 26-foot waves, Mexican authorities said. Recent rains had softened the ground, and Mexican officials warned of the serious danger from landslides. By early Saturday, 15 inches of rain had been recorded in the small town of Nevado de Colima in Jalisco, according to the Mexican national meteorological service. In the neighboring state of Colima, Patricia dumped 11½ inches on the town of Sierra Manantlán.
On Friday, numerous schools, government offices and airports were shuttered. But by Friday night, jets were touching off from the country’s largest airport in Mexico City for destinations such as Guadalajara, a main inland transportation hub not far from the storm’s path.
Farther up the coast to the north, in Acaponeta in the state of Nayarit, retired schoolteacher Enrique Jimenez Lopez sat tight with his family in his home 15 miles from the beach as they awaited the storm Friday evening. He had bought candles, as instructed by local authorities, in preparation for losing power. But, he said, people did not seem panicked or even overly worried about the fearsome storm.
“We know there are people in the street,” he said. “People just aren’t aware.”
The scene was calm, too, at a Red Cross shelter set up in an auditorium in Puetro Vallarta, where nearly 90 people waited for the storm.
“We have prepared a hot dinner - it’s not cold,” said Ali Nunez, a Red Cross medical worker, to illustrate the relaxed nature of emergency preparations. “I think people are a bit surprised about what they’ve heard about the hurricane.”
Patricia began taking shape late on Wednesday, morphing with historic speed from a series of thunderstorms into an unprecedented hurricane. In little over a day, it went from a Category 1 hurricane to a Category 4, and soon hit the top of the scale.
Hurricane records are a little cloudy because similar storms in the western Pacific - called cyclones and typhoons - are not as closely monitored. But it appeared that Patricia was a record-setter at 200 mph. In 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines with peak winds estimated at 195 mph.
Patricia is certainly tops in North America or the Caribbean, the domain of the National Hurricane Center, besting the record of 190 mph winds from Hurricane Allen, which hit the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in 1980.
Mexico is no stranger to hurricanes. In September 2014, Hurricane Odile smashed into the Baja California peninsula, causing several deaths, damaging hotels and cutting off water and electricity to tens of thousands of people. The government sent in the army to evacuate tourists who were stranded by damage to the local airport.
