CANCUN, Mexico, (Reuters) – Hurricane Richard struck the tiny Central American nation of Belize yesterday, knocking out electricity as tourists and residents huddled in government shelters.
Richard made landfall just south of Belize City and was expected to weaken to a tropical depression and enter Mexico’s main oil producing region in the Bay of Campeche by tomorrow, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
“Our windows are shuttered so we can’t see anything, but the wind is howling fiercely,” said Myrna Harris, who moved all her guests and furniture to the second floor of the hotel she runs in Belize City.
Heavy winds doubled over palm trees on Belize’s coast, webcam images showed, and residents called a local radio station to report power outages and plead for help as rivers quickly rose. Before the storm touched land, hotels across southern Belize sent foreign travelers to inland shelters, the national tourism board said. Workers at some hotels chopped down fruit and coconuts from trees.
“We don’t want the fruit to become missiles during the storm,” said Rosario Villanueva, a security guard at a hotel in Placencia where guests were evacuated early on Sunday.
Richard packed maximum sustained winds of 90 miles (150 km) per hour and will likely power through Belize and southern Mexico to enter the Bay of Campeche, where Mexico produces more than two-thirds of its 2.6 million barrels-per-day of crude output.
Most computer forecasting models appeared to suggest the storm would steer clear of major oil installations in the U.S. Gulf.
