Mexico evacuates tourists before hurricane
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-17 21:39

CANCUN, Mexico - A massive evacuation of tourists in one of the world's largest resorts began Sunday, as hundreds of buses were dispatched to move tens of thousands of tourists away from Hurricane Emily, heading toward a direct hit on the coast.

The very size of the task was daunting: about 500 buses were ordered to move 30,000 tourists in Cancun — part of a total of 70,000 to 80,000 mostly foreign tourists to be evacuated statewide to temporary shelters in ballrooms and convention centers.

Tourists evacuate Isla Mujeres island on one of the last ferries as Hurricane Emily approaches Saturday July 16, 2005, in Islas Mujeres, Mexico. Mexican officials issued a hurricane warning Saturday for much of the eastern Yucatan peninsula, including the resort of Cancun, as Hurricane Emily barreled across the Caribbean south of Jamaica. [AP]

"We have very little hope that this will change course," said a grim-faced Cancun Mayor, Francisco Alor. "This hurricane is coming with same force as Gilbert," a legendary 1988 hurricane that killed 300 people in Mexico and the Caribbean.

That year was the last time Cancun faced a mass evacuation. But back then, the city and the surrounding resort areas were fairly new and had only about 8,000 hotel rooms; that number has since grown to over 50,000.

Along the narrow spit of land that holds most of Cancun's palatial hotels, workers scrambled to board up businesses and remove traffic lights along the eight-mile main strip, to keep them from becoming wind-borne projectiles when the hurricane hit.

"This hurricane isn't going to take Cancun away from us," Alor vowed.

Some three dozen of the city's largest, strongest hotels were putting rows of beds in windowless meeting halls and ballrooms to shelter those evacuated from smaller hotels and exposed beach-side rooms.

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