On Tuesday, Hurricane Lidia made landfall on the Pacific coast of Mexico as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm, endangering to bring flooding and mudslides, forecasters said.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the President of Mexico, said earlier that civil protection personnel were on alert and about 6,000 members of the armed forces had been deployed to aid residents.
The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Lidia came ashore near the widespread beach resort of Puerto Vallarta, packing maximum sustained winds of around 140 miles (220 kilometers) per hour.
In a bulletin, it said, “Life-threatening winds and flooding rainfall spreading inland over west-central Mexico.”
According to the NHC Lidia rapidly boosted to the second-highest category on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale before reaching land.
In Puerto Vallarta — a main destination for Mexican and foreign tourists — shopkeepers earlier boarded up windows and piled up sandbags in case of flooding.
“It’s coming straight at us,” said Luis Ramos, who was running to save the bar where he works from possible damage.
“It’s better to be safe than to rush to do it later,” Felipe Pinto, head of maintenance at a hotel, told AFP as his team placed out sandbags.
School classes were suspended in some places and residents were told to take shelter.
Lidia was predicted to obtain rainfall of up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) in Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Jalisco states, it said.
The NHC warned, “These rains will likely produce flash and urban flooding, along with possible mudslides in areas of higher terrain near the coast.”
“A dangerous storm surge is expected to produce significant coastal flooding near and to the south of where the center makes landfall. Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and dangerous waves,” it added.
