Hurricane Patricia was the second-most intense tropical cyclone on record worldwide in terms of 1-minute maximum sustained winds, and the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the western hemisphere, winds were of 266 km/h and 345 km/h, reaching on October 23 its record peak intensity . Due to its intensity, it was classified as a Category 5 on the Saffir- Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Patricia was formed on October 20, 2015 because of a perturbation near the Gulf of Tehuantepec, south of Mexico, and it was dissipated on October 24, 2015. This hurricane mostly affected Mexico's Pacific coastline Playa Perula in the state of Jalisco, where approximately 400,000 people live there, since it made landfall on a Friday around 6:15 p.m. in that area. As the areas affected were mostly rural, the damages didn’t cost any life despite its intensity, but of course there was severe infrastructure damage, multiple homes were harmed, telephones lines were interrupted, banana and papaya crop were destroyed and mud and landslides closed several roads. The total losses were valued around 5.4 billion pesos.
Hurricane Patricia was followed by intense flooding rains that not only extended to southeastern Mexico, but it also affected southern Texas (United States) and Central America. In Central America, hundreds of thousands of people were directly affected by the storm; mainly in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. In Guatemala 2,100 people required evacuation and one person was killed in the Alta Verapaz Department. As happened in Mexico, lots of hectares of crops were damaged and 223,000 people were affected. In El Salvador there were floods that reached 185mm of rainfall and four people were killed. In Nicaragua, a landslide buried four miners in Bonanza and only one died while the others were rescued. Finally, in Honduras, water levels of The Ulúa River increased and 200 people were evacuated.
Areas of Quintana Roo and Veracruz (Mexico) had also been affected badly by heavy rainfall and floods. In Quinatana Roo floods reached 502mm, it affected 1,500 and 150 people ended looking for refuge in public shelters. The damage was valued at 1.4 billion pesos. In Veracruz more than 24 inches of rain caused water levels of rivers to increase.
In Southern Texas there was also heavy rain that produced severe floods. Although cars were flooded and a train derailed there weren’t any deaths. There was also a brief tornado in the city that didn’t cause much damage. Roads ended up inundated and 500 homes were affected. Damage was estimated at $50 million.
To conclude it’s not worth mentioning that for Mexico’s government the damage was nothing
like what they were expecting. This is because Hurricane Patricia hit rural areas where people are found very distributed in space.
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| Boys playing in the receding floodwaters two days after the passage of Hurricane Patricia in Jalisco, Mexico |
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