CANCUN, Mexico – Hurricane Wilma punished Mexico’s Caribbean coastline for a second day Saturday, ripping away storefronts, peeling back roofs and forcing tourists and residents trapped in hotels and shelters to scramble to higher floors. At least three people were killed.
Waves slammed into seaside pools and sent water surging over the narrow strip of sand housing Cancun’s luxury hotels and raucous bars, joining the sea with the alligator-infested lagoon. Downtown, winds tore banks open, leaving automatic teller machines standing in knee-deep water.
Wilma, which had weakened to a Category 2 as it inched northward with sustained winds of 100 mph, was expected to pick up speed today, sideswiping Cuba before it slams into Florida. Late Saturday, it was slowly moving back over the Caribbean Sea, and rains and winds were beginning to lessen in Cancun at nightfall.
As Wilma’s eye passed over Cancun on Saturday, the air became calm and eerily electric. Some residents ventured briefly from their hiding spots to survey the flooded, debris-filled streets.
Several dozen people looted at least four convenience stores, carrying out bags of canned tuna, pasta and soda, while others dragged tables, chairs and lamps from a destroyed furniture store. Police were guarding only larger stores, including a downtown Wal-Mart and an appliance store.
An outing during the eye’s calm revealed a downtown Cancun littered with glass, tree trunks and cars up to their roofs in water. The only cleanup crew visible consisted of two workers using saws to break up a tangle of tree branches. The front half of a Burger King had collapsed, and at least one gas station had its roof blown away.
As the storm passed, hotel workers pushed furniture up against windows, but the force of the wind blasted through the improvised barriers.
The wind ripped part of the ceiling off a gymnasium-turned-shelter, forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people. Stacy Presley, a 22-year-old honeymooner from Milwaukee, was among them.
She and 120 others were moved to a school where evacuees were forced to use plastic water bottles instead of bathrooms and sleep on miniature desks nearly submerged in rising flood waters. There was also no food.
On Saturday, she and her husband fled when the winds died down.
“There were people getting sick from the urine on the floor,” she said. “We had to do something, so we took off. We were running through flooded streets, passing downed power lines.”
She ended up at another school sheltering more than 2,000 people. It had mats to sleep on, emergency officials and supplies.
Nearby, Loni Steingraph, 40, of Austin, Texas, praised the shelter, saying: “I booked a four-star hotel, I didn’t know it would include a four-star shelter, too.”
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