Hurricane Agatha made history as the strongest hurricane ever recorded to hit land in May during the East Pacific hurricane season, tearing off roofs and washing roads before fading Tuesday in southern Mexico.
The storm hit the state of Oaxaca on Monday afternoon like a strong Category 2 hurricane with sustained maximum winds of 105 mph (165 km / h), and then lost quite quickly as it moved inland inland. mountainous.
Agatha’s wreckage moved northeast in the state of Veracruz on Tuesday, with sustained winds of up to 30 mph (45 km / h). The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm should dissipate in the evening, but warned that heavy rains in the system still pose a threat of dangerous flooding for southern Mexican states.
Governor Alejandro Murat of Oaxaca told local media that the state emergency services office had no reports of deaths. Several coastal towns were left without electricity on Tuesday, and mudslides blocked some of the state’s roads.
San Isidro del Palmar, just a couple of kilometers inland from the coast, was flooded by the river Tonameca that crosses the city.
Residents walked down the water to the neck to save items they could from their homes, walking cautiously with piles of clothes on their heads and religious figures in their arms.
Argeo Aquino, who had lived all his life in the city, only remembered two more times when he saw these floods.
“The houses are completely flooded, so they take everything out,” Aquino said Monday as he looked at his neighbors. “There are shops, houses. More than anything else, we have to try to save all the good stuff, because everything else will be erased. “
Tonameca’s brown water reached the windows of parked cars and minibuses used for local transportation.
Nearby, heavy rain and strong winds hit the beach town of Zipolite, known for its beach with optional clothing and bohemian atmosphere. The wind howled for about six hours on Monday, said Silvia Ranfagni, manager of Zipolite’s Casa Kalmar Hotel.
“The sound of the wind was very loud, high-pitched,” Ranfagni said. “It started at 1pm when the phone coverage was turned off and it didn’t calm down until 7.30am.”
“Many trees were felled, the roads had been washed away,” he said. “Many metal and straw roofs were blown up.”
Agatha trained on Sunday and quickly gained power. It was the strongest recorded hurricane to make landfall in the eastern Pacific in May, said Jeff Masters, a Yale Climate Connections meteorologist and founder of Weather Underground.