Forecasters said Friday that Hurricane Patricia had grown into the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western hemisphere hours before it was forecast to make landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami reported that the Category 5 storm's maximum sustained winds had grown to nearly 200 miles per hour (mph), making it the strongest storm on record in the eastern Pacific. The storm was located about 160 miles south-southwest of the port of Manzanillo, Mexico, and was moving north-northwest at 10 mph. On its current track, the storm was projected to to come onshore between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta sometime Friday afternoon or evening.
Some weakening was forecast before then, but the Hurricane Center said the storm would still be "extremely dangerous" when it makes landfall. Forecasters warned that preparations should be rushed to completion, saying the storm could cause coastal flooding, destructive waves and flash floods.
The storm's rapid growth left authorities in Mexico scrambling to make people safe. Local 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.
At a Wal-Mart in Manzanillo, shoppers filled carts with non-perishables as a steady rain fell outside.
Veronica Cabrera, shopping with her young son, said Manzanillo tends to flood with many small streams overflowing their banks. She said she had taped her windows at home to prevent them from shattering.
Alejandra Rodriguez, shopping with her brother and mother, was buying 10 liters of milk, a large jug of water and items like tuna and canned ham that do not require refrigeration or cooking. The family already blocked the bottoms of the doors at their home to keep water from entering.
Manzanillo's "main street really floods and cuts access to a lot of other streets. It ends up like an island," Rodriguez said.
In Puerto Vallarta, restaurants and stores taped or boarded-up windows, and residents raced to stores for last-minute purchases ahead of the storm.
Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis 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.
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.
The Hurricane Center said Patricia was expected to bring rainfall of 6 to 12 inches, with isolated amounts of up to 20 inches in some locations. Tropical storm conditions were expected to reach land late Thursday or early Friday, complicating any remaining preparation work at that point.
"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.
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