Hurricane Otis Makes Landfall Near Acapulco as Category 5 Storm

Hurricane Otis made landfall near the tourist hotspot of Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific Coast as a deadly Category 5 hurricane with winds capable of collapsing homes, ripping apart power lines and tossing trees.

The storm made landfall around 2:25 a.m. New York time, with maximum sustained winds of 165 miles (270 kilometers) per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador asked the residents of Guerrero state, where Acupulco is located, to move to shelters and said that a Navy security plan is already in place. “Remain in safe places, away from rivers, streams, ravines and be alert,” he said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Otis could push a “potentially catastrophic” storm surge ashore, the hurricane center said. In addition to the winds and the coastal flooding, Otis could drop 8 to 16 inches of rain, with some areas getting up to 20 inches, across the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.

“This rainfall will produce flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain,” the center said. Otis is forecast to move inland over southern Mexico during the next day or so.

A Category 5 storm can destroy framed homes, rip roofs off buildings and collapse walls. “Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months,” according to the center’s website. “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.”

The hurricane’s top winds have increased by 80 mph in the last 12 hours, which is the fastest rate ever recorded in the eastern Pacific since the satellite era began in 1966, Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said earlier in a social media post.

Photograph: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s president, during a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, on Tuesday, May 30, 2023. Photo credit: Luis Antonio Rojas/Bloomberg

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Windstorm Hurricane