The massive Hurricane Otis slammed into Mexico’s Pacific beach resort of Acapulco early Wednesday, threatening to wreak “catastrophic” damage with deadly winds and heavy rain. As a Category 5 storm, Otis packs maximum sustained winds of 165 miles (265 kilometers) per hour.
Forecasters say it’s the strongest hurricane ever to hit the country’s southern coast. It’s also the first time a hurricane has landed in the Eastern Pacific as a Category 5.
Acapulco lies at the foot of mountains overlooking the glistening ocean, a city of more than 1 million people living amid luxury homes and slums. The mountainous terrain can cause mudslides and flash floods.
On Tuesday, Otis underwent explosive rapid intensification, jumping from a tropical storm to a Category 5 in just 13 hours. That’s the fastest on record; meteorologists believe warm water temperatures aided the fast rise.
The NHC says it’s not unusual for tropical cyclones to accelerate rapidly as they approach land. But Otis’s jump from a tropical storm to a Category 5-plus was particularly striking given the terrain and how warm the waters were.
Otis’s eye slammed into Acapulco around 12:25 a.m. local time. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph at the time, and hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles from the center. The NHC warned that “catastrophic” damage was likely near the storm’s center, which could produce a life-threatening storm surge and destructive winds.
Video posted online showed mighty wind and rain lashing the city as the storm moved in. Forecasters warn that Otis is expected to dump as much as 20 inches of rain across Guerrero and western coastal areas of neighboring Oaxaca, triggering flash flooding and mudslides.
Forecasters also expect widespread power outages and some structural damage to buildings in the area. “It’s a hazardous situation,” the NHC said in an online discussion.
Unlike Hurricane Patricia, which plowed through the sparsely populated and hilly coastline of Mexico’s western state of Jalisco, Otis is hammering a densely populated region where thousands of homes are vulnerable to landslides or flooding. Hundreds of shelters have opened, and officials on megaphones have been urging residents to evacuate to them.
The NHC says Otis will weaken as it moves inland over higher terrain and is expected to dissipate by Wednesday night. It’s the third storm to batter Mexico’s Pacific coast this season. Another Category 5 hurricane, Norma, killed three people as it passed along the country’s northwest coast over the weekend. A weaker Category 1 storm, Lidia, has prompted evacuations on the country’s central coast. The government has declared a state of emergency in Jalisco and is mobilizing resources to help those affected. CNN’s Taylor Ward and Karol Suarez contributed to this report.
