Vallarta BlogHurricane Dean Hits Southeastern Mexico Hard
Update thursday Aug.24, from Los angeles Times
MEXICO CITY — Hurricane Dean saved some of its worst for last, killing eight people after shrinking to a rainy tropical depression over central Mexico, authorities reported Thursday.
In the state of Puebla, a family of four, including two children, died when a mudslide hit a highway overpass Thursday and crushed their car, state civil-protection authorities said. Wednesday, a government official died in a car wreck while checking for damage during the storm, and a 76-year-old man was killed when part of his house fell on him.
A 35-year-old woman and a 14-year-old girl died after a roof collapsed Wednesday in the state of Hidalgo, state authorities said.
Another man died trying to ford a rain-swollen river in Veracruz state on Wednesday. But because he ignored warnings from rescue personnel, state officials said they would not count his death in the storm total.
The same held for a man who was reported electrocuted by power lines while trying to secure his roof before the storm hit Wednesday morning.
The storm toll in Mexico brought the total number of fatalities associated with Dean to 28, most in the Caribbean. The hurricane had reached its full strength, Category 5, when it struck a relatively isolated stretch of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday. So far no deaths have been reported there, although property damage was extensive.
Officials said Thursday that about 90,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in Mexico , with an estimated 60,000 people in shelters overnight Wednesday. The Yucatan lost nearly 400 square miles of crops.
After Dean landed on the Veracruz coastline Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane, it quickly began to lose strength. Within hours it was downgraded to a tropical depression. But its arrival near the end of central Mexico’s rainy season caused some landslides and flooding.
By Thursday afternoon, the rains had stopped and Hurricane Dean was done.
Here in Puerto Vallarta we felt the repercussions of Hurricane Dean Wednesday night and all day Thursday the 23. The heavy rains, wind and cool weather brought out the quiet side of this usually happening city. With traffic at a slow minimum, everyone tried their best to stay out of the rain.
Could this finally be the start of the “rainy” season here in Vallarta? With the highest average falling in the months of August and September although the rainy season falls may-Oct, summer.
Vallarta sure seems to get a lot of rain in the fall, this summer with the rain averaging below normal for the area; the humidity often builds up to 90% and more hanging over the city for days on end. With that kind of intense pressure rain is needed to cool down the earth, coming in as early evening storms, lightening and thunder rocking Bahia de Banderas.
We were lucky looking at the magnitude of this category 5 hurricane, fortunately some areas were spared that initially looked as if they would be hit harder by Dean, of course as nature works some areas were not as fortunate.