hurricane orlene gained strength this Sunday and reached category 4 en route to Mexico’s Pacific coast, where it is expected to land Monday night, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported.
“Extremely dangerous Category 4 Hurricane Orlene continues north,” the NHC said in its 1200 GMT report. At that time, the hurricane was located 170 kilometers southwest of Cabo Corrientes, in the state of Jalisco (west coast of Mexico) and 250 kilometers south of the Marías Islands.
The Category 4 hurricane – measured on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which has a maximum of 5 – caused hurricane warnings to be issued for the Marías Islands and the west coast of Mexico from San Blas to Mazatlán. A tropical storm watch was in effect for the Mexican coast from San Blas to Playa Perula.
Orlene presented maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometers per hour, and was moving north at 11 km / h. It is estimated that over the course of the day she will turn north-northeast.
According to the estimated route, the center of the hurricane will pass over or near the Marias Islands tonight or Monday morning, and it would reach the coasts of Mexico in the area where the alert governs on Monday.
“Its wide circulation causes intense rains” from south to north of the Mexican coast “as well as strong winds and high waves”, reported on Twitter the Civil Protection, urging the inhabitants of the areas at risk to take refuge in temporary shelters.
The secretary of the Mexican Navy for his part has closed the ports of Nayarit and Jalisco.
Ian’s fast pace
Meanwhile, in the southern United States, the death toll in the state of Florida caused by the devastating passage of Hurricane Ian was rising rapidly and hundreds of thousands of people were still without electricity days later the massive storm hit the state’s southwestern coast and North and South Carolina.
Florida, with nearly five dozen deaths, was the area most affected by the Category 4 hurricane, one of the strongest to land in the United States. Flooded roads and destroyed bridges have left many people isolated, with limited cellular signal and without basic resources such as water, electricity and the internet.
Florida Governor Ron De Santis said that billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday would provide about 120 Starlink satellites to “help solve some of the communication problems”.
In turn, Florida utility companies were working to restore energy. As of Saturday evening, nearly 1 million homes and businesses were still without electricity, up from 2.67 million a few days earlier.
In Washington, the White House announced that President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden would travel to Florida on Wednesday. The brief statement did not provide further details on the visit.
In North Carolina, the storm knocked down trees and power lines. Two of the four deaths in the state were due to road accidents associated with the storm. The other two were a man who drowned when his truck crashed into a swamp and another died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator in a garage.
Source: Clarin
