Roslyn kills 3, causes extensive destruction in Mexico
After making landfall in Mexico as a major hurricane, Roslyn submerged cars and trucks in deep water and mud and destroyed homes.
Residents of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, assessed damage to structures and cleaned up sand and debris after the hurricane passed. Several roads were also left underwater.
Hurricane Roslyn is being blamed for three fatalities after the storm made landfall as a major hurricane, packing 120-mph winds, on Mexico’s west coast early Sunday morning. The storm quickly lost wind energy over land and was downgraded to a tropical storm, but its torrential rainfall caused destructive landslides that have buried cars and destroyed homes, leaving a mess behind.
According to local officials, three people died between the storm and its aftermath, the New York Times reported Monday. According to the Times reporting, a 80-year-old man was killed in the town of Mexcaltitan de Santiago Ixcuintla when a wall in his home collapsed, and a 39-year-old woman died in the state's Rosamorada district when her home collapsed. A third death was reported in Bahía de Banderas, as a male road police officer died of cardiac arrest while carrying out cleaning duties on a highway during the storm's aftermath.
This satellite image taken at 15:30 UTC and provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Roslyn approaching the Pacific coast of Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2022. Roslyn grew to Category 4 force on Saturday as it headed for a collision with Mexico's Pacific coast, likely north of the resort of Puerto Vallarta. (NOAA via AP)
At its peak prior to landfall, Roslyn, the East Pacific’s 17th named system, had ramped up to a Category 4 storm on Saturday before being downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday. The system, which ended a brief period of inactivity in the basin, made landfall in roughly the same area where Hurricane Orlene made landfall nearly three weeks ago on Oct. 3.
Images and videos continued to surface on Monday, showing the mess that Roslyn had left behind. Cars and tractor-trailers were submerged in water and mud, homes sustained substantial damage to their roofs, and fallen trees and landslides blocked highways.
A mudslide near Nayarit's hardest-hit area forced the highway's closure and nearly buried a tractor-trailer in mud. In a video from AFP, the wheels from the tractor-trailer aren't visible and the mud covers part of the driver's door.
In the Nayarit village of Sayulita, landslides buried some homes. After the water receded on some roads, residents waded through mud to try to salvage their possessions while others shoveled off the mud from the sidewalk. As of Monday, some streets in Sayulita were still inundated with water, which left many cars and trucks stranded.
"During the night, it was pretty noisy, there was lots of thunder," Carion Makianson, a tourist from New Zealand, told AFP. "Our room did flood, we had 10, 20 centimeters of water on the ground...it was the only real damage."
Erik Newcomer, an American who recently settled in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, which is just over 20 miles southeast of Sayulita, told AFP that he and his children were forced to evacuate as water entered their home.
"It was a bit scary," Newcomer said to AFP. "My house was destroyed."
On the coast of Nayarit, two people became trapped amid a rising river. They were both rescued and taken to a temporary shelter. Extensive damage was reported to houses in northern Nayarit, according to Manuel Salcedo Osuna, the mayor of Acaponeta.
According to the Federal Electricity Commission, more than 150,000 homes had lost power due to the storm, The Associated Press reported. By midday Sunday, power was restored to nearly one-third of those homes.
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