After lying threateningly off Mexico’s west coast for the better part of a week, a weakened Hurricane Polo finally made landfall in Baja California Sur at 10 p.m. Monday night, dumping 15-30 cm of rain but causing little harm before making its way across the Peninsula and the Gulf of California to the Sonora coast, where it still packed enough power Tuesday morning to lash the beach city of Guaymas.
Guaymas and nearby Empalme suffered flooding, power outages and damage from fallen trees Tuesday, with storm-generated waves crashing over the Guaymas malecón, flooding streets.
The Sonoran state government had announced on Monday the suspension of all “nonessential” activities, including schools, sports, and certain work, in the state capital and more than a dozen municipalities
The Mexican Navy said it had personnel ready along the northern Pacific coast and, as a precaution, deployed three vessels to deliver aid to coastal communities isolated by the storm, while local authorities along the Baja California Peninsula said they had shelters at the ready.
Travel was also suspended where the hurricane was expected to make landfall, and ports across the region were closed.
Polo was expected to weaken later on Tuesday afternoon as it moves inland, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Before it does, however, Mexican authorities urged residents to remain safe indoors either at their homes or in temporary shelters in high-risk areas. Hundreds of people across the region have been evacuated.
Polo has been an oddly behaving hurricane from its formation and continued to be so after landfall. It hit the Sonora coast hard after it weakened to a Category 1 storm. But after it made landfall in Baja California Sur (far north of Los Cabos, almost in the middle of the Peninsula at the level of the Comondú municipality) as a much stronger Category 3, state authorities were breathing a sigh of relief.
A “saldo blanco” for Baja California Sur was reported preliminarily Tuesday morning — no deaths, no injuries. “There was more water than wind,” Governor Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío said. “So there was only minor damage, well within our capacity to deal with it.”
But it was still a hurricane. Mexico’s National Meterological Weather Service (SMN) reported that the hurricane brought to the Peninsula sustained winds of 150 to 170 km/h with gusts of 180 to 200 km/h and waves 7 to 9 meters high.
With reports from CNBC, AP News, La Jornada and Once Noticias
