Hurricane Grace it touched down on Thursday morning in the Mexican Caribbean, just south of the ancient Mayan temples of Tulum, and caused a dangerous cyclonic storm.
Torrential rains and strong winds threatened destroy the most fragile homes and with preventing tourists from stepping on its white sand beaches as it crosses the Yucatan Peninsula.
The Category 1 phenomenon had already unloaded its rains on Haiti – days after a powerful earthquake -, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands en route to a direct impact on the Mayan River, the heart of Mexico’s tourism industry.
Grace’s vortex touched down just south of Tulum at 4.45am with sustained maximum winds of 130 km / h (80 mph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
The state of Quintana Roo opened shelters and evacuated some hotels already residents before Grace’s arrival.
The meteor dodged Cozumel, a popular cruise destination, and the town center of Playa del Carmen, which is usually full of music and party people, looked unsettlingly desolate Wednesday night.
Authorities ordered the closure of all businesses and one curfew from 20.
A trade in Cancun is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Grace. Photo: REUTER
A city is preparing
An exception was Axel Felix, a 37-year-old pizza delivery man who was doing his last cast of the night in a raincoat. “Now I go to my house and it doesn’t come out until tomorrow,” he said. “You have to take care of yourself and lock yourself in the house.”
Another was Juan González, a 25-year-old student walking his dog. “In the house we will all be calm. With food. Waiting to see what happens and with protection in the windows,” he said.
With little to stand in his way on the peninsula, Grace is expected to weaken slightly before regaining hurricane strength in the Gulf of Mexico to touch down again in the country at the weekend.
Quintana Roo Governor Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez said authorities evacuated hotels that were not prepared to withstand hurricanes and called for the suspension of alcohol sales in the region from 5 p.m. they canceled their flights on the peninsula.
Faced with the threat of Grace’s arrival, a group of tourists decided to leave Cancun. Photo: REUTER
On Tulum’s main avenue, tourists in plastic raincoats walked between puddles as the winds intensified. On the beach, the tide was rising and bathers were looking to protect themselves from the wind-blown sand.
Soldiers and sailors armed in vans they watched the streets of the city.
Businesses began walling up windows and formed rows in grocery stores to purchase commodities.
“We’re taking precautions, doing some shopping, like milk, sugar, water and cookies, because we don’t know how long we have to be locked in,” said Adamaris Garcia, a 21-year-old housewife who was in a row of dozens of people in a small shop.
Some tourists were worried about a lost day at the beach on their vacation and others were preparing to spend theirs first experience with a hurricane.
A tourist buys supplies in Cancun in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Grace. Photo: AP
Johanna Geys, of Munich, Germany, was having a beer in Tulum on Wednesday afternoon. It is the first time he has visited Mexico and its first hurricane.
“We don’t know what it’s like,” said Geys, a 28-year-old waitress. People have told her it won’t be bad.
As she walked out of a store with some products, Sarah Lynch, a 25-year-old California law student, said she wasn’t too worried.
“We have extra water. We’re prepared for the hurricane and we’re just going to adapt to the storm and see what happens,” Lynch said. Give a little scary because it’s something unknownBut outside of that we are fine. We survived COVID ”.
To the north, in Cancun, some fishermen moved their boats away from the shore to protect them.
“Last year it caught us like this (unprepared) because the information they give is sometimes incorrect and sometimes we put up with it (storms),” said one of them, Carlos Canche González.
“But I don’t think it reaffirms. Last year we had the experience we have, because if it grows or doesn’t grow, we have to save the team. That’s what we live on, we’ve been fishermen for years,” he added.
“For 1 as a tourist it is very negative this hurricane, because we all have activities scheduled for certain days and one is canceled because it damages our vacation, ” said Keny Sifuentes, a 19-year-old Colombian who traveled to Cancun with his family.
State authorities said that, until last week, the region hosted about 130,000 tourists and that hotels were occupied to more than half their capacity despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: AP