MEXICO: Residents in Chetumal, Mexico begin cleaning up after Hurricane Dean

Residents of Chetumal, Mexico begin cleaning up after Category 5 Hurricane Dean swept across the Yucatan peninsula, flooding streets and tearing rooftops from buildings. Resident of the town of Chetumal have started counting the cost of Hurricane Dean which slammed into Mexico's Caribbean coast on Tuesday (August 21). The hurricane flooded streets, toppled trees in beach resorts and blew the roofs off houses, but there were no immediate reports of deaths. Initial inspections appeared to indicate that damage was not as devastating as feared. Water surged down a main street at thigh level in Chetumal, a city of about 150,000 people near where Dean made landfall. Broken trees and street lights lay strewn around. After killing 11 people on its rampage through the Caribbean, Dean was a Category 5 hurricane -- the strongest possible -- when it tore into Mexico, landing around the cruise ship port of Costa Maya, near the border with Belize. A resident of Chetumal said he believed the town had escaped major damage. "I guess it started from the top part and there are a lot of trees have fallen, a lot of vegetation is everywhere, I think we fared pretty well," said Danilo Hernandez. The storm then lost power over land and was downgraded to a Category 2, although forecasters warned that roaring winds and rains were still a threat as it moved toward Mexican oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday evening. Tourist resorts like Playa del Carmen and Cancun, devastated by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, appeared to escape major damage as Dean moved quickly across the Yucatan Peninsula. Chetumal was left without power when the hurricane's sustained winds of 165 miles per hour (265 kph) and gusts of up to 200 mph (320 kph) knocked over dozens of power poles and trees. The aluminium roofs of some houses were blown off. The storm is likely to continue weakening over land but should still be a hurricane when it heads out into the oil-producing Campeche Sound in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

ITN Source | August 22, 2007

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