Air Service Resumes in Lower Baja

As Cabo San Lucas and surrounding southern Baja California communities dried out in the aftermath of Hurricane Juliette, resort and fleet operators announced Tuesday that airline service has resumed into San Jose del Cabo and that the port at Land’s End has reopened.

However, because of heavy flooding, the highway from the airport to Cabo San Lucas remained impassable to all but four-wheel-drive vehicles in the vicinity of Hotel Cabo San Lucas, about five miles out of town.

Tourists were being ferried in four-wheel-drives beyond the road block. Crews were hoping to have the highway cleared by Thursday or Friday.

Those traveling north from the airport to the East Cape faced a similar obstruction, a small lake covering the highway just outside La Ribera. Crews expected the road to be open by Thursday. The road from East Cape to La Paz was passable, but city streets were damaged and power outages were occurring.

Several docks in Cabo San Lucas Harbor were damaged or destroyed and some skiffs sank, but most of the bigger boats weathered the storm and some were even out fishing Tuesday, according to Mario Banaga, manager of the Pisces Fleet.

Telephone service and electrical power--and the availability of fresh water--were slowly being restored throughout the resort corridor from San Jose del Cabo to Cabo San Lucas, Banaga said, adding that the Cabo San Lucas Country Club golf course remain flooded.

Phone service remained interrupted throughout much of the East Cape.

Juliette, now a tropical depression off San Felipe in northern Baja, has forced the evacuation of nearly 800 people and is responsible for at least three deaths.

The storm also is responsible for the sinking Sunday morning of the 104-foot dive boat, Poseidon’s Mistress, in the Sea of Cortez near Guaymas. On board were 10 Mexican passengers and five Mexican crew members, as well as a captain from Scottsdale, Ariz.

Clinging to kayaks and a large raft, they drifted for 21 hours before rescuers arrived.