Hurricane Wilma’s outer edge batters Cancun beaches

HURRICANE WILMA’S outer edge battered Cancun’s white-sand beaches yesterday as officials ordered guests out of hotels, tourists jockeyed for spots on the last flights out, and tens of thousands of people from Honduras to the Florida Keys evacuated ahead of the “extremely dangerous” storm.

Wilma weakened slightly as it roared toward Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and south Florida after killing 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica. It was expected to reach Cancun early today, the second hurricane to hit the resort this year, following Hurricane Emily in July, before turning north-east toward Florida.

It was forecast to hit Florida's south-west coast sometime Sunday. It briefly grew into a Category 5 storm before weakening to a Category 4 with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph.

"This is still a very, very powerful hurricane," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.

Tourists were ordered out of the Florida Keys and the island of Isla Mujeres near Cancun. Cuban civil defence officials said more than 96,000 people fled their homes in low-lying areas on the island part of thousands of evacuations along a 600-mile swath through the Caribbean.

In the Florida Keys, officials put off a mandatory evacuation of residents until today.

With rain and rough surf already pounding Cancun, officials ordered 20,000 tourists to leave high-rise hotels that line the famous beach, although some ballrooms would be turned into shelters, Mayor Francisco Antonio Alor said.

He said the city was chartering flights to evacuate tourists before the airport closed.

Some of the estimated 70,000 tourists still in Cancun and surrounding areas were taking the warnings more seriously than others. The Senor Frog's restaurant in Cancun sponsored a "Hurricane Wilma" party, but it was far from full.

Standing knee-deep in the ocean and drinking beer in Playa de Carmen, south of Cancun, Mike Goepfrich of Minneapolis said: "As long as they give me beer in the shelter, and my kids are safe, we'll be fine. We're going to ride it out here."

Nearby, fisherman Rolando Ramirez helped others pull their fishing boats from the water. "People here aren't concerned about anything," he said. "They don't know that when the hurricane comes, this will all be under water."

At 5pm Irish time, Wilma was centred 170 miles southeast of Mexico's Cozumel Island, and moving northwest at 7 mph.

The "extremely dangerous" storm should eventually make the sharp right turn toward Florida because it will get caught in the westerlies, the strong wind current that generally blows toward the east, forecasters said.