PUERTO SAN CARLOS, Mexico — Hurricane Norbert barreled toward the Mexican mainland early today after tearing off roofs and forcing hundreds of people to flee widespread flooding on the Baja California peninsula.
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It hit land near Puerto Charley on Baja’s southwest coast as a Category 2 hurricane, but weakened to Category 1 after emerging over the Gulf of California, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. Norbert was expected to reach mainland Mexico sometime before dawn.
Baja residents fled to shelters in school buses and army trucks as floodwaters rose in their homes. Winds uprooted palm trees and the water rose knee-high in some streets of Puerto San Carlos.
Streets turned into rushing, knee-deep rivers in Ciudad Constitucion, on the southern peninsula. Furniture, car parts and trash cans floated down the roads that were deserted except for a few police patrols and a soaked dog on high ground.
More than 2,000 people were in the city’s shelters, many from coastal villages where nearly all homes had lost their roofs, said Miguel Arevalos, the local Civil Protection director.
Early today, the storm was passing over the Gulf of California away from the peninsula and toward the mainland. The storm passed far north of the peninsula’s resort-studded Los Cabos.
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What’s ahead?
The storm’s remnants were expected to continue to dump rain on water-logged West Texas, where authorities prepared for more flooding.
State and local officials plan to activate an emergency operations center Monday in Presidio, where an earthen levee is struggling to hold back the swollen Rio Grande.
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