75 KPH Winds
High force winds extended as far 120 miles (195 kilometers) from the center
LOS CABOS, Mexico – Hurricane Jimena pounded the middle of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula on Wednesday after lashing the Los Cabos resort region with driving rains and thundering surf.
Winds from the once-mighty storm had fallen to near 105 mph (165 kph) by early Wednesday and the U.S. National Hurricane Center ..
..in Miami said it was expected to weaken further as it runs up the peninsula. Hurricane-force winds were already hitting land.
Despite a pummeling by the fringes of the then-Category 3 hurricane, the Mexican peninsula's biggest resort, Los Cabos, appeared to escape major damage beyond power outages, mud-choked roads and downed signs.
"A transformer blew out near our hotel ... like a bomb went off," said Robert Hudak, a sports fisherman from Rochester, New York, as he walked through the storm-soaked marina at Cabo San Lucas. "Three of them went off in our neighborhood; the whole neighborhood is out." His hotel handled the emergency the old-fashioned way: "They gave us a candle," Hudak said.
Like other tourists here, Hudak planned to make the best of it.
"We're down here to fish, hopefully we can," Hudak said. He noted that storms sometimes stir up the sea bottom and provide good fishing. The resort's marlin, sailfish and dorado are prized by fishermen.
Further up Baja's west coast, Juan Arce Marron said he was prepared for the hurricane to roll into his small campground in the Bahia Asuncion fishing village later in the day.
"We're starting to feel the wind this morning," he said, "but we're prepared for a bigger hit this afternoon."
Marron said windows were nailed shut, doors were locked and boats already up on land. More importantly, he said his family had stocked days of food and water, because dirt roads in the region, which is in the heart of the massive Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, tend to wash out in large storms.
Authorities reported no injuries in Los Cabos, but several thousand people spent the night in shelters.
Dozens of evacuees from the Los Cangrejos shantytown huddled in a darkened school after electricity failed during the storm Tuesday night. Trying to calm squalling babies and ignore hunger from food shortages, the evacuees waited for dawn, and a chance to look at what the hurricane did to their homes of plastic sheeting, wood and tar paper.
"Instead of giving out a few sheets of roofing every year, they should give us materials to build real houses — wood, or even bricks," said Paulino Hernandez, an out-of-work mason who sought haven at the school. "Every year it's the same thing: They (officials) give out a few sheets of roofing, and the next year it has to be replaced" when a hurricane comes.
Baja California Sur state Interior Secretary Luis Armanado Diaz said he was still worried about the storm's strike along the coast further north, but he said Jimena could alleviate the state's drought. "If it continues like this, and there is not a major impact, it will help more than it will hurt," he said.
The federal government declared a state of emergency for Los Cabos and the state capital of La Paz as the storm approached. Schools, many ports and most businesses closed. Rescue workers from the Red Cross and the Mexican military prepared for post-hurricane disaster relief, and two Mexican army Hercules cargo planes flew in medical supplies.
While its center missed the peninsula's resort-studded southern tip, its outer fringes kicked up huge waves and flooded streets.
Los Cabos resident Eduardo Meraz, 25, went swimming in the pounding surf at the height of the storm Tuesday.
"I'm not afraid. I respect the sea," said Meraz, still dripping from his dip. "The water is nice, but the waves really toss you around."
Not everyone enjoyed Jimena's raging show.
Martin Melchior, a 25-year-old construction worker, stood outside his plywood, tin-roofed shack in the Cactus shantytown and nervously watched the storm. Thin, tattered power cables snaked over the sodden ground to the hundreds of unregistered hookups to the city's power system.
Police trucks moved through the muddy streets, urging people to join an estimated 2,000 residents already in shelters, but Melchior said he wouldn't go.
"There are too many people in the shelters, and you can't get any peace. Someone tells you: 'This is my space,'" he said.
Forecasters predicted the hurricane would drop 5 to 10 inches (12 to 25 centimeters) of rain in Baja, and dry stream beds already were gushing torrents.
Most tourists had left by Tuesday, leaving 75 percent of hotel rooms vacant. Some of those who stayed came out to marvel at the storm, fighting the winds and rain at the shore.
Others wandered deserted streets, some ankle-deep in water.
"We're going to go get some more liquor and go back to the room and just watch it," Mark Lopez, 29, a truck dispatcher from San Jose, California, said while walking near a marina with a half-dozen friends. "We're making the most of it."
Early Wednesday, Jimena was located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Cabo San Lazaro.
Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Erika was moving across the Atlantic, about 160 miles (255 kilometers) east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands. The storm had top winds around 45 mph (75 kph), but tropical-storm force winds extended as far 120 miles (195 kilometers) from the center.
It was moving westward at about 7 mph (11 kph) and could hit the Leeward Islands in a day or so.
