WORLD
TECOLUTLA, Mexico – Hurricane Dean strengthened into a Category 2 storm Wednesday and struck the Mexican mainland for a second time after battering oil platforms in the Gulf and forcing thousands to flee.Dean became the third most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in recorded history when it plowed into the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday as a ferocious Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds reaching 100 mph.
TECOLUTLA, Mexico – Hurricane Dean strengthened into a Category 2 storm Wednesday and struck the Mexican mainland for a second time after battering oil platforms in the Gulf and forcing thousands to flee.
Dean became the third most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in recorded history when it plowed into the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday as a ferocious Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds reaching 100 mph. It toppled trees, power lines and houses but spared glitzy resorts on the Mayan Riviera.
Officials said they had received no reports of deaths in the Yucatan Peninsula, although driving rain, poor communications and impassable roads made it difficult to determine how isolated Mayan communities fared in the sparsely populated jungle. Earlier, Dean killed 13 people in the Caribbean. Dean’s projected path is 400 miles south of Texas, where only heavy surf was expected. The space shuttle Endeavour landed Tuesday, a day early, because of the threat NASA once feared Dean would pose to Mission Control in Houston.
