MEXICO: Cancun braces for Hurricane Dean

As Hurricane Dean bears down on Jamaica, nervous tourists in the resort city of Cancun fill the airports in an effort to escape the storm. Meanwhile, residents board up homes and businesses and descend on supermarkets to stock up on supplies. Thousands of frightened tourists lined up for hours to flee Mexico's Caribbean resort city of Cancun on Sunday (August 19) as Hurricane Dean threatened to become the second powerful hurricane to thrash the coastline since 2005. Vacationers waited in Cancun's airport overnight and anxious families waited on stand-by for flights home. "Yeah, I've never experienced a hurricane before, I am happy I am leaving man, I don't want to get stuck here," said American tourist Matt Smith. Shop owners and residents frantically boarded up windows. Supermarkets, meanwhile, were filled with nervous shoppers, stocking up on supplies. "We are doing the same thing that we normally do so that we're not surprised by the hurricane and not caught without any supplies," said local resident Fernando Rodriguez. The hurricane could yet strengthen into a rare and potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm when it pounds the area on Monday or Tuesday as forecast, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Mexico aimed to evacuate 26,000 tourists on Sunday after sending 23,000 people home on Saturday. Home to soft white beaches and turquoise waters, Mexico's "Mayan Riviera" of Caribbean resorts like Cancun and Playa del Carmen has not fully recovered from the devastating Hurricane Wilma which struck in October 2005 and killed at least seven people.

ITN Source | August 20, 2007

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