Hurricane Emily Whips Past Jamaica on Its Way Toward Gulf of Mexico

Fishermen dragged skiffs to shore and surfers rode enormous waves Saturday as Hurricane Emily passed south of Jamaica and appeared on track to make landfall on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

Forecasters predicted the Category 4 storm, with winds gusting over 150 mph, would pass close to Grand Cayman Island overnight before smashing into the Yucatan peninsula en route to the Gulf of Mexico and possibly southern Texas this week. Dave Roberts, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said it was the strongest storm to form this early in the Atlantic season since recordkeeping began in 1860.

Mexican officials launched the evacuation of 85,000 people Saturday across more than 100 miles of coastline, including the resorts of Tulum and Playa del Carmen, and ordered the relocation of 30,000 tourists in Cancun. The state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, evacuated its platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Long lines choked Cancun airport on Saturday as tourists rushed to leave. Businesses boarded over and taped windows to protect them from shattering. One store hung a sign that said, “Emily go away.”

“The locals seem pretty nonchalant about it,” said Becky Hart, 29, a schoolteacher from Madera, Calif., as she waited to board a plane. “But then at the hotel they started chopping down the coconuts from the trees and moving people from the top floors.”

Wind gusts kicked up waves 8 feet tall and bent palm trees in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries in Jamaica, but the storm cut power to about 70,000 homes, flooded several houses and roads, and washed away seven houses, two of them from a village in the eastern parish of St. Mary, officials said.

In the fishing village of Port Royal, just south of Kingston, storm-weary locals boarded up windows and tied down metal roofs, just a week after Hurricane Dennis sideswiped the island.

“Last week it was Dennis, now it’s Emily. What’s next, Franklin?” Gordon Murphy, 39, said as his 2-year-old son played at his feet. “If I’m going to die, it’s going to be right here.”