Emily cuts across Yucatan Peninsula, stranding tourists, damaging homes

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico -- It wasn't exactly the all-inclusive, glitzy resort vacation most had planned: Sleeping on thin, foam pads thrown down on a gymnasium floor, as cold rain and wind seeped through the ceiling.

Hurricane Emily turned the white-sand beaches, emerald surf and five-star hotels of Mexico's Mayan Riviera into a rainsoaked, wind-damaged strip of coastline, stranding thousands of tourists and leaving many local residents homeless.

Tourists who spent the night in makeshift shelters emerged Monday to find hotels struggling to provide services and most restaurants and shops closed. Many went to the Cancun airport, which reopened Monday, to try to find flights home.

"All night long, cold water was pouring in through the holes in the wall," said Graham Brighton, of Leicester, England, one of about 1,000 people who spent the night on a gymnasium floor in Cancun. "There were just far too many people crammed into one space."

There were no immediate reports of deaths or serious injuries on the peninsula.

As residents of Yucatan Peninsula resorts, including Playa del Carmen and Tulum, began wading through knee-deep floodwaters to assess damage under a light drizzle, the storm barreled west, out into the Gulf of Mexico.

President Vicente Fox visited the island of Cozumel and other affected areas, saying the hurricane "has really allowed us to put to the test the capacities of the country in terms of risk prevention."

"I think we have demonstrated that they are very far-reaching and capable," he added.

Emily was expected to regain strength before slamming into Mexico's northeast coastline or southern Texas as early as Tuesday night. Residents there boarded up windows and evacuated low-lying areas in anticipation of the storm.

Mexico's state-run oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, evacuated 15,000 oil workers from Gulf rigs in the storm's path.

Damage from the hurricane was evident everywhere on the eastern Yucatan's Mayan Riviera.

Power was knocked out all along the coast. The wind ripped roofs off luxury hotels, and snapped concrete utility poles in two along a half-mile stretch of highway between Playa del Carmen and the famous resort of Cancun to the north. Plate glass windows were shattered on the ground floors of numerous businesses in Playa del Carmen.

The worst damage was in Puerto Aventuras, 60 miles south of Cancun, and in nearby Tulum, a collection of thatched hut hotels along a secluded strip of beach that is popular with backpackers. The storm's eye came ashore there.

Officials reported little damage to the ancient pyramids in Tulum or elsewhere, but a special team of archaeologists was to inspect sites throughout Quintana Roo state.

Tulum's streets were deserted Monday and the village was without electricity, according to officials reached by telephone.

Sitting in the roofless, rainsoaked lobby of the Copacabana Hotel near Puerto Aventuras, Samuel Norrod, of Livingston, Tenn., waited to hear if his travel agent could get flights home for himself, his wife and his 13-year-old granddaughter.

They rode out the storm in the hotel's ballroom.

"We could hear the windows smashing out. The wind would get loud, and then it would get soft again. And then, for about 25 minutes, it got real still," Norrod said, describing the calm eye of the hurricane.

Nearby, Remigio Kamul, 21, surveyed the remains of his family's collection of five shacks. Only a brick room remained standing.

"We just want to have a roof over our heads again," he said.

The large family crowded into the brick room during the storm.

"The children were crying," said Kamul's mother, 46-year-old Maria Concepciona. "We were hugging each other. The door was banging in the wind."

About 60,000 tourists were evacuated from Cancun, Tulum, Playa de Carmen and Cozumel, an island just south of Cancun famous for its diving. Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal said the island's mayor reported some minor damage.

Emily's wind speeds had soared to as much as 135 mph, making it a fierce Category 4 storm when it hit the Yucatan. It weakened to Category 2 as it passed over the peninsula early Monday with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph.

Emily's center eventually churned into the cooler waters north of the peninsula, weakening it further throughout the day. It was a Category 1 storm by evening, with sustained winds near 90 mph. But forecasters expected it to regain force and hit the northeastern Mexican coast "as a major hurricane," as early as Tuesday night, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

A hurricane warning was in effect Monday night from south of the Mexico-Texas border to the community of La Cruz.

In Texas, many tourists on South Padre Island started packing up Monday, although about 10,000 remained, officials said. A steady stream of RVs headed north from the island resort after a local judge ordered vehicles in danger of being blown over by high winds to leave county parks on the island.

Mexico's two main crude oil loading ports in the Gulf, Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas, were closed and Pemex evacuated its Bay of Campeche oil rigs, shutting down offshore production as the hurricane approached.

Pemex's offshore operations in the area account for about two-thirds of the company's 3.4 million barrels a day of crude oil production.

The company reported Sunday that one of 26 helicopters being used for the evacuation crashed while trying to land on a platform in high winds, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

Emily hit Mexico after sweeping across the Caribbean, causing flooding that killed a family of four in Jamaica but sparing the Cayman Islands major damage.

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On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov