Mexico’s main Pacific ports reopen after avoiding ire of Hurricane Patricia

Wilma “is the last major hurricane to strike the U.S.-an unprecedented stretch that could unfortunately lead to “hurricane amnesia” for the destruction such a hurricane can cause”, NOAA noted. Losses in Mexico are likely to be less than $2 billion, he said.

Most of the costs in Texas will be for infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and the USA government may cover numerous expenses through the National Flood Insurance Program, Watson said.

“The evaluation that they’re doing at this time says that there is not a crisis situation”, said Jose Luis Lopez, director of emergency responses for Caritas Mexico, relaying information provided by local Caritas chapters. As of two days after landfall, there was not a single death attributed to the storm. President Enrique Pena Nieto said Saturday that 3,000 to 3,500 homes were damaged and about 8,650 acres of farmland were hurt. The Puerto Vallarta Tourism Board issued a statement on Saturday afternoon saying that hotels, the cruise port and the airport were all back online and functioning normally and skies were sunny again.

An official with Caritas Mexico, the church’s charitable arm, says the storm left a mess in parts of the dioceses serving the western states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit with flooding and property damage, but mostly impacted small settlements and rural areas – which were being provided with assistance from parishes diocesan collections. There were no reported fatalities, and little storm damage was visible in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest metropolitan area.

The storm downed trees, flooding streets, and buffeted buildings as a category-5 storm, but lost strength in the mountains and was downgraded to a tropical storm. Mexico’s military is providing temporary shelters and food in affected areas.