Wilma tears into heart of Caribbean resort strip

HURRICANE Wilma tore into the heart of Mexico’s Caribbean resort strip last night, trapping thousands of frightened tourists in darkened shelters pounded by torrential rains and shrieking winds.

The eye of the mammoth storm, which had already killed 13 people, moved over Cozumel Island and was expected to pound the area for two days, raising the possibility of catastrophic damage, before curling around Cuba and sprinting toward Florida.

The storm, with 140 mph winds, shattered windows and downed trees that crushed cars. Pay phones jutted from waist-deep floodwaters in the famed hotel zone. Power had been cut before the storm as a precautionary measure.

“Tin roofing is flying through the air everywhere. Palm trees are falling down. Signs are in the air, and cables are snapping,” Julio Torres from the Red Cross office in Cozumel said.

“Not even emergency vehicles have been able to go out on the streets, because the winds are too strong.”

The centre of the vast storm was projected to stay over the resort-dotted tip of the Yucatan Peninsula until tomorrow morning.

“It’s going to be a long couple of days here for the Yucatan Peninsula,” said Max Mayfield, director of the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami.

At the same time, it was pounding the western tip of Cuba, where the government evacuated nearly 370,000 people. Forecasters said Wilma could bring as much as 40 inches of rain in parts of Cuba.

The storm was expected on Monday to slam into Florida, where emergency officials issued the first evacuation orders for the mainland. Residents of the Florida Keys were asked to start leaving two days ago.

Officials said about 20,000 tourists were at shelters and hotels on the mainland south of Cancun, and an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 in Cancun itself. Mexico’s civil defence chief, Carmen Segura, assured their relatives that “their families are protected as they should be”.

But instead of luxury hotel suites overlooking a turquoise sea, many tourists found themselves sleeping on the floor of hotel ballrooms, schools and gymnasiums reeking of sweat because there was no power or air conditioning.

American Ronnie Croley, 46, said he lost power at his Madison, Mississippi, home for four days after Hurricane Katrina struck in late August, then had to help his company clean up a factory damaged by Hurricane Rita.

“This was supposed to be a little break for us, but now here we are again,” he said.

No injuries were reported as the hurricane moved in. Cancun Red Cross director Ricardo Portugal said the biggest problem so far had been “nervous crises” and 11 pregnant women ferried to hospitals because worries over the storm had induced labour.

Early Wednesday, Wilma briefly became the most intense hurricane recorded in the Atlantic with 882 millibars of pressure, breaking the record low of 888 set by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Lower pressure brings faster winds.

Wilma approached Mexico with the same strength as Hurricane Katrina, which slammed into Louisiana on August 29, killing more than 1,200 people.

If it follows its predicted path it will be the seventh hurricane to hit Florida in 14 months.

Traffic jams had already began forming across the US south-west coast as people put up shutters, stocked up on canned food, water and petrol.