Mega-storm drenches Mexicans but little damage

Dozens of modest homes in the village of Chamela were blown away by Patricia’s powerful winds after it made landfall in Jalisco state late Friday.

The Mitons have had several hurricane warnings since moving to Mexico in 2006.

OxFam’s chief executive Helen Szoke said there were still big risks in the storm’s aftermath.

There were early reports of flooding and landslides, but no word on fatalities or major damage. The airport reopened to start ferrying tourists back home and buses crowded the streets. “We still can’t lower our guard”, he told the nation.

This year’s El Niño, an unusually warm phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation that creates a band of warm water near the equator, was ranked as one of the strongest on record and is largely to blame for the enormity of the storm. “Nature was kind-hearted”.

“Thankfully the damage wasn’t so bad” in the Puerto Vallarta area, said Alhy Daniel Nunes, a spokesman for the Red Cross of Jalisco state. “We do not have any deaths”.

But authorities urged Mexicans to remain on alert as Patricia continued to produce rain on its path north.

It has been labeled a Category 5 hurricane, the highest rating possible, and experts have warned it could trigger 40-foot waves and severe flash flooding.

Residents and tourists alike moved inland and those who could not get out just tried to take cover.

By 1 a.m. Saturday it had been downgraded to Category 2, with winds of about 100 miles per hour, and the center predicted that the hurricane would weaken to a tropical storm later in the morning and a tropical depression by Saturday afternoon.

The carried lashing rains, surging seas and cyclonic winds with what forecasters called a potential to cause “catastrophic” damage.

Patricia’s power before it made landfall compared with that of Typhoon Haiyan, which left over 7,300 people dead or missing in the Philippines in 2013.

Enrique de la Madrid, Mexico’s secretary of tourism, said tourist resorts such as Puerto Vallarta had had “extraordinary luck” in avoiding damage from the powerful storm.

“We should be happy that the results have not been those that at one point we were expecting”, said Ruiz.

“We’ve always taken precautions but never to the extent that we felt we needed to this time”, April Miton said.

Brandie Galle of Grants Pass, Ore., joined other Hard Rock Hotel guests in a boarded-up ballroom to wait out the storm in Puerto Vallarta but wound up eating in a hotel restaurant two hours after landfall, she said.

In the face of winds capable of lifting vehicles and sweeping structures from their bases, the popular holiday resort of Puerto Vallarta and the major port of Manzanillo on the Mexican south-west coast were braced for imminent devastation.