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HURRICANE DEAN CAUSES MINIMAL DAMAGE IN MEXICO DESPITE STORM'S HIGH INTENSITY.

Article Excerpt
With the devastation caused by Hurricane Wilma still fresh on their minds, residents of the Yucatan Peninsula braced for the worst in preparing for Hurricane Dean. When it made landfall, Dean was a Category 5, which was not only was more powerful than Wilma (Category 4) two years ago, but it was also the third-most-intense hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean in recorded history. A hurricane that potent spelled potential disaster. Dean's impact turned out to be much less than anticipated, however, because it made landfall in a sparsely populated area of Quintana Roo and moved at a very fast pace, sparing residents the drenching rains that characterized Wilma.

Even though Dean's damage was less than anticipated, experts at the Servicio Metereologico Mexicano (SMN) say Mexico is not out of the woods yet. SMN forecasters said that four other intense hurricanes of Category 3, 4, or 5 could form before the end of the hurricane season in November. Two of those hurricanes would form in the Atlantic Ocean and two in the Pacific Ocean, according to SMN computer models.

Hurricane misses major cities

Analysts agree that Dean could have created much more havoc in Quintana Roo and Yucatan states had it not skirted large populated areas like Cancun and Merida. In 2005, Wilma inflicted a devastating blow to Cancun, causing the resort city to lose much of its tourism infrastructure, including most of its beaches (see SourceMex, 2005-11-02 and 2005-11-09).

Still, Dean caused property damage to many small communities, including the area where it landed, near Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Othon Blanco, in Quintana Roo state. Early estimates indicated that the storm left about 15,000 families homeless in small villages in Quintana Roo.

"The big challenge is to get quickly to all these villages," Quintana Roo Gov. Felix Gonzalez Canto said in a television interview, "because when the days go by and authorities don't arrive, people begin to get desperate and feel they're not getting the attention they should."

The hurricane caused most of its damage in the interior of the country,...

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