Tens of thousands flee as Hurricane Delta lashes Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula

Tens of thousands of residents and holiday-makers were evacuated and sought refuge in emergency shelters on Wednesday as Hurricane Delta made landfall on the coast of northeastern Mexico in the early hours of the morning, lashing popular tourist resorts.

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The category 2 storm hit Puerto Morelos – approximately halfway between the resort towns of Cancun and Playa Del Carmen – at around 6.30am US east coast time, with estimated maximum winds of 105mph, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

It was then forecast to bring a “life-threatening storm surge and strong winds to northeastern portions of the Yucatan peninsula”.

Dave Roberts, an NHC hurricane specialist, said it was expected to head back off-shore within a “few hours” and move north into Thursday night and regain strength to become a category 4 hurricane before hitting the US Gulf coast as a category 3 and “major hurricane event making landfall at some time on Friday”.

Louisiana is once again in the crosshairs after a torrid storm season.

Video footage from Cancun showed flailing palm trees being battered by the wind, driving rain, damaged hotels, felled trees and buildings and tourists hunkering down on make-shift beds in the conference room of a hotel.

Mexican civil defence official Luís Alberto Vázquez said there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, but that Delta had toppled about 95 trees and cut electricity in parts of Cancun and Cozumel.

Across the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, he said about 39,000 people had been evacuated and approximately 2,700 had taken refuge in storm shelters.

In Quintana Roo, which includes tourist destination Cancun, state tourism officials said there were over 40,000 tourists.

People were ordered off the streets by 7pm and in Cancun most of the hotels were evacuated and bused to inland shelters or sheltered in one of 160 shelters in the city, including 400 in Cancun Convention Centre.

On Tuesday, people in the Yucatan Peninsula prepared for the storm by stocking up on supplies, boarding up buildings and queuing for water and gas, reported CNN, and the Mexican Army’s disaster support force was set to help with storm preparations and evacuations.

Holiday-makers were moved from hotels to shelters and struggling to get home amid delayed and cancelled flights.

‘‘We’re just trying to get out of here. Our flight was actually tomorrow so we changed it to today to get out of here,” Blake Greer, a holidaymaker from Texas, told TV Azteca. “We caught a flight to Mexico City and we’re going to fly home tomorrow.’’

Maria de la Guardia, an American photojournalist, reported panic buying before the storm arrived and that on Tuesday night the city of Cancun was a “ghost town”. She said she lost power in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

“Everyone was ordered off the streets of #Cancun at 7pm,” she tweeted alongside pictures of deserted streets and boarded up windows. “It’s a ghost town, with many still taping and boarding windows as Hurricane #Delta approaches.”

The following morning she wrote: “Sirens can be heard in #Cancun as #Delta whips the city. The door/wall of a mechanic has ripped off across the street from me.”

Former TV meteorologist Laura Buchtel, from New Orleans, who was in Playa del Carmen with her husband celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary, went to Valladolid, on the Yucatan Peninsula, on Tuesday after being told to “head inland”.

“Courtyard of our hotel all buttoned up for the storm. So thankful we are here and not in a shelter of last resort. Prayers for all…not sure if we will have power of wifi tomorrow,” she tweeted on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday morning, she said: “Rain/wind coming in pretty good now as outer bands reach Valladolid – still have power! Yes! Very little info coming in though.”

The destruction of Delta is another hit on the area’s tourism industry which has already suffered as a result of the pandemic.

In the US, the storm is expected to first hit Louisiana on Friday afternoon before moving across Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Potential hazards caused by the hurricane could be as far-ranging as from northeastern Texas to the Florida Panhandle, the NHC said.

Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards and Alabama governor Kay Ivey both declared a state of emergency on Tuesday ahead of Delta’s arrival.

Louisiana, where some residents are still living in shelters after Hurricane Laura, has already started voluntary evacuations in some areas.

“We are still reeling from Hurricane Laura,” wrote Lake Charles mayor Nic Hunter wrote on Facebook.