Hurricane Odile, which slammed into Mexico’s Baja California as a major Category 4 hurricane, is opening the door for criminals and looters to ransack villages devastated by the storm.
Officials say that 135 people have been injured from the storm, and no one has been killed, but the major problem has been power outages and looting from stores left unprotected in the wake of evacuations.
Police say that looters have appeared to focus on electronic and higher end stores, stealing televisions, stereo equipment and other high event devices. Grocery stores have also been cleaned out with everything taken from Coca-Cola to potato chips to pancake mix.
Over 240,000 residents of the region are without power after most of the utility poles in the region were snapped off by the storm. The Federal Electricity Commission says that 92 percent of the people living in Baja California are without power.
Officials say that without power, it will be very hard to control the looting of vacated homes and businesses.
A hurricane that rapidly gained strength before making landfall is pounding Mexico’s Baja California.
Residents and tourists have been taking shelter and hotels have opened conference rooms so people can find a safe place to ride out the storm. Hurricane Odile made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane although it weakened to Category 3 shortly after landfall.
The National Hurricane Center said the storm made landfall around 9:45 p.m. near Cabo San Lucas with estimated sustained winds of 125 m.p.h. Mexican authorities had forced evacuations of coastal areas.
Forecasters with the NHC say that 5 to 10 inches of rain is likely over the region during the course of the storm with isolated areas receiving as much as 15 inches. Flooding is likely to cause significant damage as most of the region is very mountainous and landslides will mix with floodwaters.
At least 30,000 people are out of their homes. Most of the region has no electricity or clean drinking water.
Federal law enforcement and intelligence officials are concerned that a group in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, is connected to ISIS.
They believe that the jihadists are already working on a plan to attack the United States by crossing terrorists over the unsecured Mexican border.
Judicial Watch has reported that intelligence officials have recording of radio talk and chatter indication the terrorist groups aim to “carry out an attack on the border” and that it is “coming very soon.”
The unnamed source told Judicial Watch that the threat is considered so severe that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss in El Paso is being given details on security measures to protect the base from potential attack.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has sent a bulletin about the situation that was obtained by Fox News: “A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending Aug. 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of the U.S., for terror attack.”
A major earthquake woke up Mexico and Guatemala Monday morning, leaving at least four people dead.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck around 6:23 a.m. local time on the Pacific Coast about a mile from Puerto Madero on the Guatemalan border. The quake was initially measured at 7.1 but reduced to 6.9.
Two people died in the Guatemalan town of Pati when their home collapsed on them. A third was confirmed dead from a heart attack brought on by the stress of the quake. A wall in Huixtla crushed a man when a building collapsed.
Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said on the radio that a newborn was killed when hit by a collapsing wall but emergency personnel did not confirm it.
Massive power outages have left most of Guatemala without electricity. Early reports had hundreds of homes with significant damage and utility poles down for hundreds of miles.
A powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook Mexico City and the surrounding regions Friday.
The quake was so strong that people rushed into the streets out of fear that building would collapse.
Mexican authorities said that walls cracked and fell along with the collapse of some smaller buildings but no major building collapses or deaths.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred along a fault line that was considered dormant by most geologists. However, Gavin Hayes of the USGS says the plates in the Guerrero Seismic Gap were locked, which allowed a potential build up of devastating energy.
The last quake along that fault was a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1911.
The USGS says the fault line has the potential to cause a quake that is above magnitude 8.4 and could kill more than the 9,500 people in the 1985 magnitude 8.1 Mexico City quake.
A new report shows that two thirds of Texas are currently facing drought conditions.
The study from the Texas Water Development Board shows that 25 percent of the state has faced conditions so dry that they are facing “extreme drought” conditions.
The TWDB report shows that the northern and northeastern parts of the state are those hit the worst by the drought. The report also states that almost the entire state has received less than 50 percent of the normal rainfall.
The worst news for the region came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a drought outlook for the 2nd quarter of the year that calls for conditions in Texas to “continue or worsen.”
Two lakes, White River Lake and Lake Meredith were officially listed as 0% full by the TWDB. Mackenzie Lake was listed at only 5% full.
The only part of the state with more than normal rainfall during the last three months was the extreme southern tip of the state near the Mexican border.
A truck containing dangerous radioactive material was stolen from a gas station near Mexico City on Monday.
Officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency said Mexican officials informed them of the theft in a statement Wednesday.
The truck contained radioactive cobalt-60 from a hospital in Tijuana that was being transported to a waste disposal site. The IAEA said the material was properly shielded for safety when the truck was stolen but that it’s impossible to know if the thieves have breached that shielding.
“Whoever has or finds the equipment is urged not to open or damage it, as in these cases it can cause severe health problems,” the agency said.
Intelligence officials say that in the wrong hands the material could be used to make a “dirty bomb”.
A massive search is underway in six Mexican states and Mexico City. The white Volkswagen truck has been shown on TV and in newspapers with phone numbers for citizens to call if they spot it.
Another tropical storm has formed in the Pacific Ocean and is bearing down on Mexico.
Tropical Storm Sonia had formed about 285 miles south of the Baja California peninsula. The storm has maximum sustained winds of 40 m.p.h. and is moving north at 7 m.p.h.
The National Hurricane Center said that a tropical storm warning has been issued from Mazatlan north along Mexico’s mainland. The forecasters expect Sonia to pass south of Baja California before making landfall somewhere on the Mexican mainland.
Heavy rain could hit a wide area and local officials are warning residents about possible mudslides and flash flooding.
Two weeks after dual Hurricanes led to flooding that killed 139 people, a wave of heavy rain has led to flooding that has caused serious problems for the resort city of Acapulco.
Authorities rushed to close schools and evacuate people from areas deemed “high risk” as floodwaters climbed over 3 feet deep in some areas. Continue reading →
Mexico’s interior minister has told multiple media outlets the death toll from the double whammy of Hurricane Ingrid and Hurricane Manuel is now at 110.
Another 68 are missing and presumed dead after a landslide covered over half of the village of La Pintada in Guerrero state. Continue reading →
