Tourists evacuate before Hurricane Emily

CANCUN, Mexico -- Jittery tourists clutching pillows streamed out of beachside hotels and headed inland Sunday as Hurricane Emily took aim at the Yucatan peninsula with 145 mph winds after sideswiping Jamaica, where four people were swept away in a car.\nTwo people also were killed in a helicopter crash on the Gulf of Mexico as more than 15,500 workers were evacuated from offshore oil platforms.\nThe Category 4 storm, which pounded Jamaica's southern coast, then made a jag to the south that spared the Cayman Islands before it set course for Mexico, was expected to land near Cancun Sunday night or early Monday.\nThe U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm would probably weaken as it crossed the Yucatan peninsula on its way to the Gulf.\nEmily was likely to make landfall again on Wednesday anywhere from northeastern Mexico to southern Texas, Jack Beven, the hurricane specialist at the Miami-based center said, but cautioned it was too early to make a precise prediction.\nA fleet of buses was moving 30,000 tourists in the resort to temporary shelters, while 70,000 to 80,000 more people were being evacuated across the state of Quintana Roo.\nHundreds of mostly foreign tourists waited for the buses in a light drizzle. Others lay shoulder-to-shoulder on thin foam pads in a sweltering gymnasium near the center of Cancun, one of Mexico's most popular tourist destinations known for its white-sand beaches, sprawling hotel complexes and all-night discos.\nThe evacuees were given free bottled water and sandwiches, but many gasped when a hard rain rattled the metal roof of the building. Some asked how long they would have to stay in the confines.\n"It's hot in here," said Beth McGhee, 46, a tourist from Independence, Mo. "We feel like we've been kept in the dark until this morning. But we're safe, and that's what's important."\nCancun's grim-faced mayor, Francisco Alor, said the city was preparing for a near-direct hit.\n"This hurricane is coming with same force as Gilbert," he said in reference to a notorious 1988 hurricane that killed 300 people in Mexico and the Caribbean.\nTourism and hotel officials had said guests of beachside hotels would be relocated to ballrooms and convention centers in larger, well-protected hotels, but the first wave of evacuees was ferried to gymnasiums and government schools.\nIn Jamaica, torrential rains drenched the south coast and washed away at least three houses, while a man, a woman, an infant boy and his five-year-old sister were swept away in a car Saturday night. Searchers on Sunday found the four bodies trapped inside the car, which was filled with mud and other debris, police said.\nThe family had been driving through a flooded rural road in southwest Jamaica when a surge of water pushed them over a cliff.\nThe Cayman Islands escaped major damage Saturday. The islands and a handful of other Caribbean countries were devastated last year when three catastrophic hurricanes -- Frances, Ivan and Jeanne -- tore through the region with a collective ferocity not seen in years, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.\nOn Sunday evening, Emily was about 135 miles southeast of Cozumel, an island just south of Cancun, and was approaching the Yucatan peninsula at about 20 mph.\nThe last time Cancun faced a mass evacuation was 1988, when the city and surrounding resort areas had only about 8,000 hotel rooms; that number has since grown to over 50,000.\nAlong the narrow spit of land that holds most of Cancun's palatial hotels, most businesses were boarded up and traffic lights were removed in anticipation of the storm.\nTourists in Cozumel also were moved to more central accommodations and local residents prepared to flee their homes for shelters in schools and communities on the island, which lies almost directly in the hurricane's projected path.\nPresident Vicente Fox encouraged peninsula residents to seek shelter and not worry about leaving property and possessions unguarded.\nState oil company Pemex was removing the last few hundred workers from oil platforms on the Gulf of Mexico. Strong winds downed a helicopter participating in the evacuation on Saturday night, killing a pilot and co-pilot, the company said.\nThe platform evacuations closed 63 wells and halting the production of 480,000 barrels of oil per day.\nEmily has unleashed heavy surf, gusty winds and torrential rains across the Caribbean, hitting hard Thursday at Grenada, where at least one man was killed when his home was buried under a landslide.\nThe storm trailed Hurricane Dennis, which killed at least 25 people in Haiti and 16 in Cuba earlier this month.\nForecasters have predicted up to 15 Atlantic tropical storms this year, including three to five major hurricanes. The hurricane season began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.