Hurricane Odile wreaks havoc on Western Mexican coast

Published on : Tuesday, September 16, 2014

tropical-hurricaneA powerful and dynamic Hurricane Odile thrashed the southern Baja California peninsula overnight, tearing away the facades of luxury resorts, ruining countless car and hotel windows and leaving lobbies swamped and full of debris Monday.

 

Odile was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the Baja Peninsula as far as he intensity factor goes , tied with Hurricane Olivia of 1967, reported Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.

 

Dozens of flights, both landing and taking off, had been canceled at Cabo San Lucas International Airport as of midday Monday, according to FlightStats.

 

“No power or cell service, been in this shelter since Sunday,” tweeted Colleen Ferreira, a reporter for Denver’s 9News, on Twitter. “What a vacation.” She added that her hotel, the Westin, “suffered major damage in the hurricane. Windows blown out, debris everywhere.”

No cruise ships remained in port in Cabo, the website Crusin reported, though several were well off the coast or in other ports along Mexico’s west coast.

 

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Odile’s center made landfall at about 9:45 p.m. PDT near Cabo San Lucas. It said at landfall, Odile had estimated wind speed of 125 mph, and an automated station near Cabo San Lucas reported sustained winds of 89 mph with a gust to 116 mph.

 

As of 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Odile was located about 65 miles east of Cabo San Lazaro, Mexico, and had maximum sustained winds of about 100 mph, making it a Category 2 storm, down from a Category 4 on Sunday. Odile was moving toward the northwest at 14 mph.

 

Life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides are a good bet in areas of heaviest rainfall. The media reported dozens of people being injured by flying glass.

 

Though winds from Odile will diminish over the next day or so, remnants of a weakening Odile and another weather system could combine to bring more heavy rain to the Southwest later in the week.
 
Cities that could be affected by the heavy flooding thunderstorms included Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tucson, Las Vegas, and eventually Salt Lake City remain on high alert.

 

 

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