Mexico braces for strongest recorded hurricane in Western Hemisphere

In Mexico, officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states that contain the bustling port of Manzanillo and the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta. The governor of Colima ordered schools closed on Friday.

According to the 2010 census, there were more than 7.3 million inhabitants in Jalisco state and more than 255,000 in Puerto Vallarta municipality. There were more than 650,000 in Colima state, and more than 161,000 in Manzanillo.

Evacuations were under way in Puerto Vallarta Friday, with officials taking people to 14 shelters, mostly in schools, according to the Jalisco government's webpage. Exact numbers of those evacuated were not immediately available, and few people were seen going to them.

Loudspeakers along the shore of the resort of Puerto Vallarta, popular with U.S. and Canadian tourists, blared orders to evacuate hotels as a light rain fell and a slight breeze ruffled palm trees. The streets emptied as police sirens wailed.

Hotel workers in Puerto Vallarta said efforts had begun to start evacuating guests, but others said they were still waiting to be told where to send them.

Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio told Mexico's Radio Formula Friday morning that officials are especially worried about the safety of people in the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta, in Jalisco state, and in the nearby community of Bahia de Banderas, in Nayarit state.

"We need people to understand the magnitude of the hurricane, it is a devastating hurricane, the biggest one ever registered," he said.

Osorio added that the government had deployed soldiers and federal police agents to help out, but has provided no numbers.

Aristoteles Sandoval, the governor of Jalisco state, expected 15,000 people to be evacuated from Puerto Vallarta.

Roberto Ramirez, the director of Mexico's National Water Commission, which includes the nation's meteorological service, said that Hurricane Patricia will be powerful enough to lift up automobiles, destroy homes that are not sturdily built with cement and steel and will be able to drag along people caught outside when the storm strikes.

Ramirez said that the people in the most danger from the hurricane will be those on the coast, especially in the state of Jalisco.

The lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Puerto Vallarta was bustling Friday morning, with a long line of people forming to check out. More than 900 guests had rooms at the hotel the previous evening, but many wanted to get out of town before the storm arrived.

Sandra Rojas and her husband, a veterinarian from San Jose, Costa Rica, were among those trying to leave. After loading their cars, they were going to drive to the Jalisco state capital of Guadalajara to plan their next move.

The hotel is saying that nothing is going to happen," said Rojas. "But it's nature. Anything can happen.

In Puerto Vallarta on Thursday, restaurants and stores taped or boarded-up windows, and residents raced to stores for last-minute purchases ahead of the storm.

Puerto Vallarta's airport and port were closed on Friday, while the major cargo port of Manzanillo was also shut. State oil company Pemex said service stations would stop selling gasoline in the hurricane-watch area.

Local schools were also closed and some business owners were busy boarding and taping up windows. The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) said it was planning electricity shutdowns around 1 p.m. in the states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit.

Long lines of traffic stretched out of Puerto Vallarta en route to the major city of Guadalajara, around a 5-hour drive inland.

The Hurricane Center in Miami warned that preparations should be rushed to completion, saying the storm could cause coastal flooding, destructive waves and flash floods.

"This is an extremely dangerous, potentially catastrophic hurricane," center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said.

Feltgen said Patricia also poses problems for Texas. Forecast models indicate that after the storm breaks up over land, remnants of its tropical moisture will likely combine with and contribute to heavy rainfall that is already soaking Texas independently of the hurricane, he said. "It's only going to make a bad situation worse," he said.

In Colima, authorities handed out sandbags to help residents protect their homes from flooding.

Patricia was centered about 145 miles southwest of the Pacific resort of Manzanillo early Friday and was moving northwest at 12 mph on a projected track to come ashore between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta sometime Friday afternoon or evening.

Some fluctuations in intensity were forecast before then, but the Hurricane Center said it was expected to be an "extremely dangerous" Category 5 storm when it made landfall.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the Mexican coast from San Blas to Punta San Telmo, a stretch that includes Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta. A broader area was under hurricane watch, tropical storm warning or tropical storm watch.

"We are calm," said Gabriel Lopez, a worker at Las Hadas Hotel in Manzanillo. "We don't know what direction (the storm) will take, but apparently it's headed this way. ... If there is an emergency we will take care of the people. There are rooms that are not exposed to wind or glass."

Wire services