Hurricanes hit from 2 oceans

Hurricane Felix came ashore on Nicaragua's remote Miskito Coast early yesterday as a Category 5 storm, damaging about 5,000 homes in the region before moving westward toward the heart of Honduras, officials said.

Less than nine hours later and more than 1,600 miles away in the Pacific, a second and much weaker hurricane, Henriette, struck the resort city of San Jose del Cabo on the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California.

The center of Henriette's eye reached the Baja mainland yesterday afternoon about six miles east of San Jose del Cabo's downtown.

It was the first time Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes had made landfall on the same day since the U.S. National Hurricane Center began keeping records in 1949, according to the Associated Press.

Packing 160 mph winds as it made landfall, Felix quickly lost power and was downgraded to a category 1 hurricane as it advanced over the sparsely populated mountains along the Nicaraguan-Honduran border. The storm nonetheless threatened to cause severe flooding as it passed near Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, later yesterday evening.

In Nicaragua, officials said 5,500 of structures had been damaged in Puerto Cabezas and other coastal cities. At least three people had been killed. Honduran and Nicaraguan officials had evacuated thousands of tourists and residents from seaside towns all along the Miskito Coast beginning Monday.

As many as 60,000 tourists, most of them Americans, remained in the resorts at the southern tip of Baja California as Henriette approached, Mexican officials said.

Angel Marquez Cervantes, chief of staff to the city government in Cabo San Lucas, said officials there had begun mandatory evacuations of 2,000 people from hotels and low-lying city neighborhoods.

"We had some problems because a lot of people didn't want to leave their houses," Marquez Cervantes said in a telephone interview. "But when we're on red alert we evacuate them whether they want to or not. We'd rather they be angry with us, but safe."

In Honduras, authorities warned of severe flooding and landslides caused by an expected 15 inches of rain. Hurricane Mitch was also a weakened storm when it passed through central Honduras in 1998, setting off floods and landslides that killed thousands. But Felix appeared to be acting differently, and was forecast to pass through the country relatively quickly.

"Thanks to God . . . the hurricane is entering in the least populated areas of Honduras, which are areas of forests and farmland," Honduras President Manuel Zelaya told a press conference Tuesday morning. "God willing, it will lose force as it crosses the Segovia Mountains of Nicaragua."

Several hours later, the president acknowledged Felix was less of a threat, though it still could cause severe flooding as it passed near Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, later yesterday evening.

Honduran officials declared a "red alert" in Tegucigalpa, home to more than 1 million people. Dozens of gasoline stations ran out of fuel as people filled tanks. City officials said they were ordering mandatory evacuations in some neighborhoods.

Officials at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Felix "will likely produce life-threatening flash floods and mud slides." Forecasters expected it to become a tropical storm as it reached Tegucigalpa late yesterday.

Thousands of Miskito Indians in the region declined to be evacuated ahead of the storm. Nicaraguan officials said at least one person had been killed in Cayos Miskitos, an island 25 miles from the mainland.

In a nationally televised address, Nicaraguan Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo called on his countrymen to pray "for our brothers on the Caribbean."

"We Nicaraguans have, historically, faced the violence of nature, and we've done so with solidarity and a sense of resignation," Obando y Bravo said. (next page »)