Hurricane Felix hits Nicaragua's Miskito coast
Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua’s Miskito Coast as a record-breaking Category 5 monster storm today in an area home to thousands of stranded Miskito Indians.
Meanwhile, off Mexico’s Pacific coast, Tropical Storm Henriette strengthened into a hurricane with 75mph winds and the US National Hurricane Centre said it was ploughing toward the upscale resort of Cabo San Lucas.
Felix landed around dawn at Punta Gorda with winds of about 160 mph.
Nicaragua’s Civil Defence chief, Rogelio Flores, said 2,000 people were evacuated before the hurricane blew roofs off homes, blocked roads and knocked out telephone services.
But many other Miskito Indians refused to leave low-lying areas and headed to shelters set up in schools.
Twenty fishermen were missing, the newspaper La Prensa reported.
It was first time that two Category 5 hurricanes have hit land in a season since 1886, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The storm was following the same path as 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, which killed nearly 11,000 people.
Felix’s top winds are 160mph which have the potential to cause catastrophic damage, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
Felix threatens to devastate a swampy coastline home to thousands of Miskito Indians.
Tourists fled island resorts by plane or helicopter as the storm roared toward land.
In the final hours before the Category 5 storm was to make landfall, Grupo Taca Airlines frantically airlifted tourists from the Honduran island of Roatan, popular for its pristine reefs and diving resorts.
About 1,000 people were taken off the island, including 19 Americans evacuated by a US Chinook helicopters sent from the Soto Cano Air Base on mainland Honduras. Another 1,000 people were removed from low-lying coastal areas and smaller islands.
From the Miskito Coast, Felix was projected to rake northern Honduras, slam into southern Belize tomorrow and then cut across northern Guatemala and 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 last night.
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 US Southern Command said in a statement that a Chinook helicopter evacuated 19 US citizens from Roatan, including tourists and members of US Joint Task Force-Bravo who were visiting the island.
The US National Hurricane Centre said Felix could dump up to 12 inches of rain in isolated parts of northern Honduras and north-eastern Nicaragua, possibly bringing flash floods and mudslides.
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.
This is only the fourth Atlantic hurricane season since 1886 with more than one Category 5 hurricane, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only 31 such storms have been recorded in the Atlantic, including eight in the past five seasons.
