Cancun, Mexico – The delta temporarily intensified to category four with 225 km / h winds Tuesday on a course to hit southeastern Mexico and then continue toward the US Gulf Coast this week.
The worst of the rapid effects expected along the northeastern tip of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where hurricanes were expected Tuesday night and a landing early Wednesday.
From Tulum to Cancun, tourism-dependent communities that are still steeped in the remnants of Tropical Storm Gamma may be hardest hit by the storm.
In Vancouver on Tuesday, long queues spread through supermarkets, groves and gas stations as citizens rushed to inventory under the sunniest skies, but authorities warned that citizens have several days of food and water. Out of the water.
Mexico began on Tuesday to evacuate tourists and citizens from coastal spaces along its Riviera Maya. Carlos Joaquín, governor of Quintana Roo, said buses were already taking others on Holbox Island and that hotels in Cancun and Puerto Morelos transported visitors to government shelters.
Some hotels that had exemptions because their structures were evaluated for primary hurricanes had to house their visitors and verify their emergency systems.
When the alarm went off at the Fiesta Americana Condesa Hotel, Lizeth Elena Garza Hernández, 35, ran out of her room wearing her 10-month-old daughter, Hannah Cienfuegos, who had arrived Sunday from Reynosa, Tamaulipas with her husband, 4. -old daughter and in-laws.
“I’m afraid because we don’t know how it can have an effect here, because we’ve never been on a stage like this,” he said.
Joseph Potts, a deputy sheriff in Denver, Colorado, cared for his 3-year-old son near a children’s pool while his wife attended an emergency hurricane briefing. The hotel was introduced to accommodate visitors in an internal ballroom of the hotel, but in a while after the typhoon intensified, the hotel told them that they would all be transferred to a university in Cancun.
“The kind of hurricane gave the impression overnight and we just have to put an end to it and go back to the beach,” Potts said.
Cancun Mayor Mara Lezama Espinosa said the city had opened more shelters than before to give others more area in popularity for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister of State for Tourism, Marisol Vanegas, said that lately there are 40 thousand 900 tourists in Quintana Roo. This number is a fraction of what is normally because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The region’s economy has been devastated by months of closure caused by a pandemic.
At Moon Palace in southern Cancun, many visitors to The Moon Palace hotels in Cozumel, Isla Mujeres and waterfront rooms have moved to a hurricane shelter at the resort’s main exhibition center.
Bed linen, food and entertainment were provided at the center of the guest exhibition until the hurricane passed, said Cessie Cerrato, public manager of Palace Resorts.
“It’s huge,” Cerrato said of the conference room. ” It’s super and extra away from the water. “In view of the coronavirus pandemic, the room will allow a distance and a mask will be required for guests.
The state ordered all non-essential businesses to close at 1 p. m. and prohibits the sale of alcohol. Hurricane-force winds were expected Tuesday night and a landing would occur near Puerto Morelos, south of Cancun, between 1 a. m. and 2 a. m. Wednesday.
Just south of Puerto Morelos in Playa del Carmen, tourist Zena Koudsi from Charlotte, North Carolina, taking one last walk on the beach before Delta hit.
“I’ve never been to a hurricane zone,” Koudsi said. “I’ve never been to Mexique, I was hoping maybe more sun, fewer waves, but, you know, we’re looking to make the most of it. “
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Tuesday that 5,000 federal infantrymen and a corps of emergency workers would be dispatched to Quintana Roo to help with the typhoon.
State airports remained open on Tuesday morning, beaches were closed.
“Honestly, I don’t see much stopping it until I get to the Yucatan, due to the low vertical wind shear, the upper moisture of the deep layer, and the very warm, deep waters of the Northwest Caribbean,” said Eric Blake. forecaster at the National Hurricane Center.
The westernmost province of Cuba and the Cayman Islands were the subject of tropical typhoon warnings on Tuesday when Delta moved westward.
It is expected to arrive with an incredibly harmful typhoon surge that raises water grades from 7 to 11 feet (2. 1 to 3. 3 meters) in Yucatan, accompanied by giant, damaging waves and flash flooding inland.
On Tuesday in the middle of the Delta, about 420 kilometers east-southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, moving west-northwest to 26 km/h.
Once he leaves Mexico, he is expected to return to category four prestige in the Gulf as he approaches the U. S. coast, where a landing on Friday would be followed by heavy rains in the southeastern United States.
“While there is great uncertainty in trajectory and intensity forecasts, there is a significant threat of waves of typhoons, winds and harmful rainfall along the Louisiana coast to western Florida from Thursday night or Friday. hurricane plan in position and monitor Delta’s forecast updates,” the Hurricane Center said.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a state of emergency Tuesday that she said would allow officials to seek federal aid faster if it is later.
Beachland communities off the coast of Alabama are still cleaning up the damage caused by Hurricane Sally, which made landfall on Gulf Shores on September 16, as they warn others to be in a position for Hurricane Delta.
Back in Cancun, Mexican tourists Stephanie Vázquez, 30, and her husband Fernando Castillo, 38, took a dip in the pool of the Fiesta Americana Hotel in Cancun on Tuesday with their 2-year-old son Leonardo Castillo Vázquez.
Vazquez felt “nervous, worried” about Delta, “because it’s the first time I’ve been here with my son. “
“I think there’s some security the hotel has provided so far, I know we’re going to be well protected, but you can never be 100 percent sure because it’s nature and you don’t know what’s going to happen. “She said.
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AP editors Seth Borenstein in Washington, Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, Tomas Stargardter in Playa del Carmen, Mexico and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.