Yahoo reported that the cyclone was grazing Cancun. Their description was: "...Hurricane Wilma's outer edge battered Cancun's white-sand beaches Thursday as officials ordered hotel guests to evacuate, tourists jockeyed for spots on the last flights out, and tens of thousands of people fled from Honduras to the Florida Keys. Wilma weakened slightly as it roared toward Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and south Florida, with forecasters calling it an "extremely dangerous" storm that already has killed 13 people. It was expected to reach Cancun early Friday, the second hurricane to hit the resort this year, following Hurricane Emily in July, before turning northeast toward Florida." See
The 4 PM trajectory prediction from NOAA:
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.
Gov. Jeb Bush has declared a State of Emergency for Florida. No one in this Republican administration — state or federal — wants to see the kind of mis-managed debacles of the last two major catastrophes.
"Gov. Jeb Bush's declaration in advance of the storm gives officials the ability to activate the National Guard and broad authority over evacuation plans, the distribution of recovery supplies and other items."
A friend in Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Mexico (4 or 5 hours south of Cancun) e-mailed me the following this afternoon at 3:17 PM:
"Right now it's calm in Bacalar with a few wind gusts. We are watching closely this storm because it is deciding if it's on a straight track for Chet or is going to veer north. It turned in on us overnight. Looks like south of Cancun will be the landing ground.
The local news says they are turning off our power tonight at 9 pm. We'll see if they really do that or not. It is so hard to tell at this stage what this storm will decide to do. I do think we're in for some Tropical Storm winds..."
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