Mexico is on track to get hit with the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere
Christopher Sherman, Associated Press
BusinessInsider.com
Oct. 23, 2015
MANZANILLO, Mexico (AP) — Residents of a stretch of Mexico’s Pacific Coast dotted with resorts and fishing villages boarded up homes and bought supplies ahead of Friday’s arrival of Hurricane Patricia, a monster Category 5 storm that forecasters say is the strongest ever recorded in the Western hemisphere.
With maximum sustained winds near 200 mph (325 kph), Patricia is the strongest storm ever recorded in the eastern Pacific or in the Atlantic, said Dave Roberts, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
Patricia’s power was comparable to that of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 dead or missing in the Philippines two years ago, according to the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization.
In Mexico, officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states that contain the bustling port of Manzanillo and the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta. The governor of Colima ordered schools closed on Friday, when the storm was forecast to make what the Hurricane Center called a “potentially catastrophic landfall.”
Rain pounded Manzanillo late Thursday while people took last-minute measures ahead of Patricia, which quickly grew from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane, leaving authorities scrambling to make people safe.
At a Wal-Mart in Manzanillo, shoppers filled carts with non-perishables as a steady rain fell outside.
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