CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico: Hurricane Odile blazed a trail of destruction through Mexico's Baja California Peninsula on Monday that leveled everything from ramshackle homes to luxury hotels and big box stores, leaving entire neighborhoods as disaster zones.
About 30,000 tourists were being put up in temporary shelters in hotels and Los Cabos international airport remained closed. Emergency officials reported that 135 people were treated for minor injuries from flying glass or falling objects, but there were no serious injuries or deaths so far.
The Mexican government said in a statement Monday night that army and commercial planes would be sent to La Paz and Los Cabos airports to get tourists out of the area.
Odile, which made landfall near Cabo San Lucas the previous night as a powerful Category 3 hurricane, toppled trees, power poles and road signs along the main highway, which at one point was swamped by rushing floodwaters.
Countless windows were blown out of rental cars and high-end hotel rooms, and resort facades crumbled to the ground.
“From what we have seen around here, everything is pretty much destroyed,” said Alejandro Tealdi, a 32-year-old resident of Cabo San Lucas. His home was damaged and suffered some flooding, but nobody was hurt. “In the seven years I've been here, I've never seen anything hit like this.”
Luis Felipe Puente, national coordinator for Civil Protection, said most of the area's power poles were blown over, leaving 239,000 people in the state of Baja California Sur without electricity. Many were also without drinkable water. Ports were closed.
“It's the entire corridor” between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, said Deneb Poli, a medical worker at the Hotel Melia Cabo Real.
She said the resort's guests and employees were fine, but electricity and phone lines were down and cellphone coverage was spotty. “There are parts of hotels that are completely collapsed. ... The damage is pretty extensive.”
Charly Park, 52, flew in from Los Angeles on Sunday but instead of checking into his hotel room, he and his wife spent the night at a cramped, hot shelter.
“It's a horrible experience, no air conditioning, no fans ... the power lines all fell down,” Park said.
Many homes and businesses were reduced to shells with only the core structure intact. The walls of an OfficeMax collapsed into the parking lot.
A convenience store was torn apart with the contents of its shelves dumped to the ground, and some locals helped themselves to food, water and other goods.
“The most important thing was the force of the wind,” Puente said. “That was the central element that hurt Los Cabos.”
