Hurricane Polo makes 2nd landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast
A street in Puerto San Carlos, Mexico, which was flooded by Hurricane Polo, is seen Tuesday. (Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images)Social SharingHurricane Polo made a second landfall on Mexico's northwestern Pacific coast on Tuesday after drenching the southern Baja California peninsula.
Landfall was near the port city of Guaymas on the Sea of Cortez in Sonora state. State authorities ordered emergency evacuations in southern municipalities including Guaymas, Empalme, Benito Juarez and Vicam. Officials said 543 people hunkered down in shelters as the storm rolled in.
Polo, a Category 1 hurricane, was inland at 10 a.m. local time, and the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported maximum sustained winds of around 120 km/h.
"Rapid weakening is expected as the center of Polo moves farther inland," the NHC said in its bulletin.
While the hurricane was forecast to weaken over land, private forecaster AccuWeather warned its moisture-laden remnants could trigger a deluge across the U.S. Southwest and Plains.
Polo earlier battered the Baja California peninsula as a more powerful Category 2 storm, turning streets into rivers and snapping trees.
However, Baja California Sur Gov. Víctor Manuel Castro said no lives were lost due to the storm.
The storm was expected to dump 10 to 15 centimetres across southern and central portions of Sonora, with isolated maximum totals of 20 centimetres. Baja California Sur could face a further two to five centimetres of rain and the risk of life-threatening flooding and mudslides, according to the NHC.
"At my house we tied all down. We prepared very well. We expected it to be stronger, but thank God it wasn't so disastrous," Bertha Lopez, a resident of Loreto in Baja California Sur, told Reuters.
Nearly 700 people sought refuge in emergency shelters in Baja California Sur, and will be returning to their homes throughout the day, the head of Mexico's civil protection agency, Laura Velázquez, said at a news conference.
In a post on X, Mexico's Secretariat of the Navy said a ship brought 2,000 food baskets, 8,000 litres of drinking water and machinery, among other things, to the region.
