Felix slams into Nicaraguan coast
LA CEIBA, Honduras Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua's Miskito Coast as a record-setting Category 5 monster storm Tuesday, ripping off roofs and forcing thousands to flee in an area home to thousands of stranded Miskito Indians.
"The wind is terrible. There's a roaring when it pulls the roofs off the houses," Lumberto Campbell, a local official in Puerto Cabezas, told Radio Ya. "There's no electricity because all the posts that hold up the cables have fallen down.
"The metal roofs come off like shaving knives and are sent flying against the trees and homes," he said before the line cut off.
Meanwhile, off Mexico's Pacific coast, Tropical Storm Henriette strengthened into a hurricane with 120 kph (75 mph) winds and the U.S. National Hurricane Center said it was plowing toward the upscale resort of Cabo San Lucas, popular with Hollywood stars and sea fishing enthusiasts.
Felix landed around dawn at Punta Gorda with winds of about 260 kph (160 mph), only two weeks after Hurricane Dean struck Mexico, further up the Caribbean coast.
It was first time that two Category 5 hurricanes have hit land in the same since records began to be kept in 1886, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only 31 such storms have been recorded in the Atlantic, including eight in the last five seasons.
Rogelio Flores, the head of protection civil for the affected area, said officials have received distress calls from three boats at sea with a total of 49 people on board. But there were no immediate reports of casualties.
He said more than 12,000 people had been evacuated. But many other Miskito Indians refused to leave low-lying areas and head to shelters set up in schools.
Phones and power were out in much of the region, making it difficult to find out what was happening as the storm's winds began hitting the remote, swampy area, much of it reachable only by canoe. The Nicaraguan government sent in some soldiers before the storm hit, but was preparing to send in more help once the hurricane passed.
In Honduras' seaside resort of La Ceiba, residents spent the night reinforcing flimsy house walls with plywood and sandbags.
"It's going to be strong, but we have faith that Christ will protect us," said 37-year-old housewife Sandra Hernandez, watching satellite images of the storm on television.
Off Mexico's Pacific coast, meanwhile, Henriette strengthened into a hurricane and was on a path to hit the tip of the Baja California Peninsula on Tuesday afternoon. The had sustained winds of 120 kph (75 mph).
At 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) it was centered about 120 kilometers (80 miles) south-southeast of the peninsula.
Before dawn Tuesday, strong waves pounded the resort's beaches, rain fell in sheets and strong winds whipped palm trees. More than 100 residents spent the night in makeshift shelters as the storm approached, and more were expected to leave their homes Tuesday.
On Monday, police in Cabo San Lucas said high surf stirred up by Henriette led to the drowning of an unidentified woman. Over the weekend, the storm caused flooding and landslides that killed six people in Acapulco.
On Tuesday, in the final hours before Hurricane Felix was expected to hit, Grupo Taca Airlines frantically airlifted tourists from the Honduran island of Roatan, popular for its pristine reefs and diving resorts, while the U.S. Southern Command said in a statement that a Chinook helicopter evacuated 19 U.S. citizens, including tourists and members of U.S. Joint Task Force-Bravo who were visiting the island.
Another 1,000 people were removed from low-lying coastal areas and smaller islands.
Bob Shearer, 54, from Butler, Pennsylvania, said he was disappointed his family's scuba diving trip to Roatan was cut short by the evacuation order.
"I only got seven dives in. I hope they didn't jump the gun too soon," he said as he waited for a flight home in the San Pedro Sula airport.
Felix was projected to rake central Honduras, slam into Guatemala and then cut across southern Mexico, well south of Texas.
Its massive storm surge could devastate Indian communities along the Miskito Coast, an isolated region straddling the Honduras-Nicaragua border where Miskito Indians live in wooden shacks, get around on canoes and subsist on fish, beans, rice, cassava and plantains. Thousands were stranded along the coast late Monday.
The only path to safety is up rivers and across lakes that are too shallow for regular boats, but many lack gasoline for long journeys. Provincial health official Efrain Burgos estimated that 18,000 people must find their own way to higher ground.
The storm was following the same path as 1998's Hurricane Mitch, a sluggish storm that stalled for a week over Central America, killing nearly 11,000 people and leaving more than 8,000 missing, mostly in Honduras and Nicaragua.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Felix could dump up to 30 centimeters (12 inches) of rain in isolated parts of northern Honduras and northeastern Nicaragua, possibly bringing flash floods and mudslides. In the highland capital of Tegucigalpa, more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) inland, authorities cleared vendors from markets prone to flooding.
Across the border in Belize City, skies grew increasingly cloudy and winds kicked up as residents boarded windows and lined up for gas. Tourists competed for the last seats on flights to Atlanta and Miami. Police went door-to-door forcing evacuations.
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Associated Press writers Paul Kiernan in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; Olga Rodriguez in Belize City; Diego Mendez in San Salvador, El Salvador; and Freddy Cuevas en Tegicugalpa, Honduras contributed to this report.