Hurricane Emily Aims for Mexico's Yucatan

BULL BAY, Jamaica - Fishermen dragged skiffs to shore and workers raced to board up buildings Saturday as Hurricane Emily swept along the southern coast of Jamaica, packing winds of nearly 155 mph and rain that could bring landslides and flooding.

The Category 4 storm was on track to pass close to Grand Cayman Island later Saturday or early Sunday before smashing into the Yucatan Peninsula, where Mexican officials prepared to evacuate tourists, on its way to the Gulf of Mexico and possibly southern Texas next week.

Jamaican officials sent buses to evacuate hundreds of residents in flood-prone communities along the southern coast, but all refused to leave, said Nadene Newsome, spokeswoman for Jamaica's emergency management office.

In the seaside fishing village of Port Royal, on a peninsula just south of Jamaica's capital, Kingston, storm-weary locals again boarded up windows and tied down metal roofs, just over a week after Hurricane Dennis sideswiped the island.

"Last week it was Dennis, now it's Emily. What's next, Franklin?" Gordon Murphy, 39, joked as his 2-year-old son played at his feet. "If I'm going to die, it's going to be right here."

Emily's winds spiked to 155 mph Saturday afternoon with higher gusts, making it a Category 4 storm that could still strengthen, according to the National Hurricane Center.

U.S. meteorologist Stacy Stewart said Friday that it was "very rare" to have such a strong hurricane in the Caribbean Sea so early in the season.

Hurricane force winds extended up to 60 miles and tropical storm force winds extended up to 150 miles. The hurricane center warned the storm could dump 5 to 8 inches of rain over Jamaica, which could produce flash floods and mudslides.

Mexican officials declared a hurricane warning and advised tourists to evacuate much of the country's Caribbean coast _ including the resorts of Cancun and Cozumel and Isla las Mujeres islands _ but stopped short of ordering the move.

"We're trying to anticipate things, so we don't get caught rushing around later," President Vicente Fox said Friday. "I'm confident we can handle this thing with good prevention work."

Long lines of people choked the Cancun airport on Saturday as tourists rushed to leave.

"The locals see pretty nonchalant about it," said Becky Hart, 29, a school teacher from Madera, Calif., as she waited to board a plane. "But then at the hotel they started chopping down the coconuts from the trees and moving people from the top floors."

Emily was centered about 130 miles southwest of the Jamaican capital and 235 miles southeast of Grand Cayman on Saturday afternoon. It was moving west-northwest near 18 mph.

If Emily remains on track, it's likely to strike land in the eastern Yucatan on Sunday night, lose some strength as it moves overland, then regain its dangerous energy in warm waters over the Gulf of Mexico, said Jack Beven, the hurricane specialist at the Miami-based center.

He said Emily was likely to make landfall again sometime Wednesday, anywhere from northeastern Mexico to southern Texas, but cautioned it was too early to make a definite prediction.

Emily has unleashed heavy surf, gusty winds and torrential rains across the Caribbean, hitting hard Thursday at Grenada even as the island was still recovering from the devastation of last year's Hurricane Ivan.

Grenada declared a national disaster Friday after Emily's winds ravaged hundreds of homes, destroyed crops and killed at least one man whose home was buried under a landslide.

Last year, three catastrophic hurricanes _ Frances, Ivan and Jeanne _ tore through the Caribbean with a collective ferocity not seen in years, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Forecasters have predicted up to 15 Atlantic tropical storms this year, including three to five major hurricanes. The hurricane season began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

From my limited time in the Yucatan I learned how different that area of Mexico is from the rest of the county. Outside the tourist areas, where the "locals" are mostly immigrants from other parts of Mexico, are the Mayan people. The do not refer to themselves as Mexican. As one person there explained to me they relate themselves to the American Indians, the native people.

Most still speak Mayan other then when they go to school. They still speak of their grandfathers fighting in the wars against Mexico which didn't end until the early 1900's. One Mayan man laughed all the Mexicans are moving to the Yucatan because they have ruined Mexico City.

Many, if not most of the people outside the tourist areas still live in the tradional Mayan type home. This would be wooden, round, one room. They still use hammocks instead of beds. It just amazed me the starched, shocklingly white dresses of the women as the worked in their dirt floor homes and yards, carrying in their daily water supply. (Even the natives don't drink the running water in the area. As they explained to me, the water table is only a couple feet. "When my cow pisses, in about 15 minutes it is in the water table."

I can't imagine how the more inland areas will withstand a strong storm like this. I doubt leaving is a possiblity as the majority don't seem to own cars.

The area that looks to be in the bullseye for the storm in near a small town Punta Allen, a mecca for birding and fishing. The city is on a small pennisula on the coast of the Sian Kaan Biosphere Preserve.

South of here lies the capital of Quinta Roo, Chetumal with a population just over 200,000. South of Chetumal lives a small pennisula which ends with a city/ village of about 350 people, Xcalak. Xcalak was the largest city of the Yucatan until 1955 and Hurricane Janet. The city has never regained the population.

I have never been to Xcalak, but had planned to go there and in that planning started reading their local forums. It has a small enclave of full time and part time American residents. www.xcalak.tv

Another great site to track these storm via local resident forums is www.stormcarib.com . This site has locals posting from all the islands and areas.

I enjoyed reading your post.

We spent 3 weeks travelling through the Yucatan and flew out, as previously scheduled, 36 hours before Hurricane Emily hit.

It seems that the eye of the hurricane hit just north of Tulum.

With a predicted 8-12 foot storm surge, I wonder if the cabañas we stayed at on the beach at Tulum are history now.

As far as the Mayans we met, I imagined the caretakers of Cenote Dzitnup (at the outskirts of Valladolid) safe and sound in their underground cavern.

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