CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — Mexico’s Baja Peninsula has taken a pounding from Hurricane Odile (oh-DEEL’). At luxury resorts, the facades have been ripped away, and countless car and hotel windows have been shattered. Some of the hotel lobbies were left swamped and full of debris.
Across the region, people hunkered inside overnight to ride out the storm. In one hotel, guests moved from a makeshift shelter into crowded basement storage areas after the boarded-up windows failed.
The storm made landfall last night near Cabo San Lucas as a powerful Category 3 hurricane. Its top winds were near 110 miles an hour as it moved over the peninsula. The storm brought down trees, power poles and road signs along a main highway, which at one point was swamped by rushing floodwaters.
Homes and businesses along the highway were heavily damaged, many reduced to shells. The walls of an OfficeMax collapsed into the parking lot. A convenience store was ripped apart, the contents of its shelves dumped to the ground.