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Letter to the editor

Listening, luck gave Mexico a Dean pass

People heeded evacuation orders, and the storm veered.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 24, 2007

POZA RICA, Mexico - It drove terror deep into Mexico, smashing ashore as the third-most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever to hit land.

But the furious beast proved relatively toothless, thanks to large-scale preparations - and a lot of luck.

Hurricane Dean did kill at least eight people in Mexico. It also destroyed sugar cane, corn crops and mango orchards and demolished a major cruise ship port. Insured losses were estimated to be less than $300-million.

Still, things could have been far worse.

The fast-moving hurricane first punched the Yucatan peninsula as a Category 5 storm, and many feared catastrophe for one of Mexico's poorest regions. It later spun through the heart of Mexico's offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the mainland coast.

But luckily, Dean missed all major cities, tearing through areas of tiny villages, farmland and forest. It didn't linger like more damaging storms, and by the time it hit key oil platforms and ports, Dean had weakened.

It also helped that people heeded the government's warnings, which were issued in Spanish and in Mayan languages. At least 18,000 fled to government shelters before the storm hit. Tourism officials also got organized, evacuating more than 50,000 tourists from Cancun and the Riviera Maya.

In the past, few would leave their homes or stores for fear of looting. Now people realize hurricanes pose the greater danger after seeing Wilma ravage Cancun in 2005 and Mitch kill nearly 11,000 in neighboring Central America in 1998.

Beatriz Hernandez, 31, said that people in 1999 ignored warnings before heavy rains prompted floods that killed 350, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and damaged the pre-Hispanic ruins at Tajin in Veracruz.

"Now we know that when they say it's going to be bad, that it really is bad," said Hernandez, watching as men removed mango and avocado trees knocked over by Dean's winds, which also ripped the roof off her Poza Rica home. Hernandez fled during the storm to a friend's sturdier home.

[Last modified August 23, 2007, 23:04:12]