UPDATE 4-Hurricane Wilma lashes Mexico’s beach resorts
Hurricane Wilma’s fierce winds and rain battered Mexico’s famed Caribbean beach resorts on Friday, knocking over trees and trapping thousands of nervous tourists inside cramped shelters.
Powerful waves swallowed up white sand beaches in the popular resort of Cancun and electricity was cut all along Mexico’s “Maya Riviera” and on the island of Cozumel, a favorite of scuba divers and cruise ship passengers.
Sturdy tropical trees danced in howling winds and others lay toppled in empty and flooded streets in the resort of Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. Snapped electricity cables dangled above the streets, sending sparks flying.
“The sound of the wind is what is frightening,” said Rossy Mischne, who was holed up inside the Cozumel hotel where she works.
Stinging rains gathered strength as Wilma, a Category 4 hurricane, moved in slowly from the Caribbean with winds of 145 mph (230 kph). Forecasters warned the storm could cause catastrophic damage.
More: today.reuters.com
UPDATE 5-Hurricane Wilma lashes Mexico's "Riviera"
Hurricane Wilma's ferocious winds battered Mexico's famed Caribbean beach resorts on Friday, knocking over trees and signposts and trapping thousands of nervous tourists in cramped shelters.
Powerful waves swallowed up white sand beaches in the popular resort of Cancun and howling winds tore across the island of Cozumel, a favorite of scuba divers and cruise ship passengers.
All along the "Maya Riviera", sturdy tropical trees danced in the wild wind and others lay toppled in empty and flooded streets. Electricity was cut and signposts were sent spinning through the air.
"I'm okay, I'm okay -- don't worry," Italian
UPDATE 4-Tourists flee huge Hurricane Wilma in Mexico
Roaring waves pounded Mexican beach resorts on Thursday and thousands of tourists were ready to be evacuated as powerful Hurricane Wilma ploughed through the Caribbean on its way to Florida.
Cuba evacuated 100,000 people and residents of southern Florida stocked up on drinking water and gas to prepare for Wilma, which spun off the coasts of Mexico and Belize packing winds of around 145 mph (230 kph).
Described by forecasters as extremely dangerous, Wilma killed 10 people in mudslides in Haiti earlier in the week.
Expensive beachfront hotels all along Mexico's "Maya Riviera" coast emptied of
Hurricane lashes Mexico's popular Riviera Maya resorts
Hurricane Emily ripped roofs off luxury hotels along Mexico's Mayan Riviera, stranded thousands of tourists and left hundreds of local residents homeless today, forcing many to remain in crowded, leaky shelters.
Residents of Yucatan Peninsula resorts, including Playa del Carmen and Tulum, began wading through knee-deep flood waters to assess damage under a light drizzle, as the storm barreled west into the Gulf of Mexico.
There were no immediate reports of death or serious injuries on the peninsula, but Emily was expected to regain strength and threaten Mexican oil rigs before slamming into northeast The worst
UPDATE 1-Hurricane Wilma 'clobbering' Mexico's Yucatan
Massive Hurricane Wilma clobbered Mexico's Caribbean beach resorts on Saturday, threatening heavy damage and loss of life as it meandered slowly into the Yucatan peninsula.
Winds of 125 miles an hour (220 kph) howled in off the sea, knocking over houses, upturning trees and trapping thousands of tourists in cramped shelters. The storm was downgraded to a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, from a Category 4 on Friday and a record-breaking Category 5 earlier this week.
The calm of the storm's eye settled over Playa del Carmen early in the day but the storm's north eye
Hurricane reshapes Mexico's resort scene
The most frazzled, flustered, frantic people in Cabo San Lucas these days may be the wedding planners.
Thousands of vacationers are flocking to Cabo and other western Mexican resorts to relax and say their "I do's."
That's because more than a month after Hurricane Wilma thrashed Cancun — the country's premier resort — and the rest of Mexico's eastern coast, that area is still recuperating. Most hotels and businesses along the 10-mile waterfront strip are closed, and much of the beach has been stripped of its white powder sand.
The effect of Hurricane Wilma, says Ruben Cota,
Wilma slams Mexico resorts, tourists flee
Lashing wind and rain pounded Mexican beach resorts on Friday and thousands of tourists hunkered down in shelters to escape Hurricane Wilma, which was hammering Caribbean resorts on its way to densely populated southern Florida. Heavy rain was coming down in diagonal sheets and howling winds were buckling sturdy trees.
Tourists were evacuated from luxury beachfront hotels all along Mexico’s “Maya Riviera” coast and the normally calm, turquoise Caribbean seas heaved and Wilma dumped rain on streets patrolled by soldiers ordering people to take cover.
Described by forecasters as extremely dangerous and at its height later
UPDATE 4-Hurricane Wilma aims at Florida after Mexico chaos
Hurricane Wilma thundered toward Florida on Sunday after devastating Mexico's Caribbean resorts with floodwaters and wild winds that smashed thousands of homes and killed at least seven people.
While residents of the Florida Keys hunkered down for battering winds and a powerful surge of floodwaters, dazed tourists waded through knee-deep water in the streets of Mexico's beach resort Cancun to seek food and water after three nights in damp shelters without electricity.
At one point the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, Wilma weakened as it hammered Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
Wilma pounds Mexico’s Yucatan
Hurricane Wilma pounded Mexico’s Caribbean coast on Saturday, destroying homes and flooding beach resorts as it meandered slowly over the Yucatan peninsula.
Winds of 120 miles an hour knocked over houses, uprooted trees and kept thousands of tourists in cramped shelters.
The storm has been downgraded to a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale— but its winds and rains were still powerful enough to cause massive damage and threaten lives. Emergency forces have reported no deaths so far.
The stalled storm has battered Playa del Carmen, Cancun and diving centre Cozumel for the past 36 hours and was
Tourists flee huge Hurricane Wilma in Mexico
Roaring waves pounded Mexican beach resorts on Thursday and thousands of tourists were ready to be evacuated as powerful Hurricane Wilma plowed through the Caribbean on its way to Florida.
Cuba evacuated 100,000 people and residents of southern Florida stocked up on drinking water and gas to prepare for Wilma, which spun off the coasts of Mexico and Belize packing winds of around 145 mph (230 kph).
Described by forecasters as extremely dangerous, Wilma killed 10 people in mudslides in Haiti earlier in the week.
Expensive beachfront hotels all along Mexico's "Maya Riviera" coast emptied
UPDATE 5-Fierce Hurricane Wilma threatens Mexico, Fla.
Hurricane Wilma became the fiercest Atlantic hurricane ever seen as it churned toward western Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan peninsula on Wednesday, and threatened densely populated Florida after killing 10 people in Haiti.
The season's record-tying 21st storm, fueled by the warm waters of the northwest Caribbean Sea, strengthened with unprecedented speed into a Category 5 hurricane, the top rank on the five-step scale of hurricane intensity.
Oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico were expected to escape this storm but Florida's orange groves were at risk.
Early Wednesday, a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane measured
