Jimena weakening after plowing into Mexico

[September 03, 2009]  LOS CABOS, Mexico (AP) -- Tropical Storm Jimena was moving north along the east coast of Mexico's Baja California early Thursday, a day after hitting the peninsula as a hurricane that ripped off roofs and toppled power poles.

Jimena, which also skirted the peninsula's main resorts, weakened to a tropical storm later in the day Wednesday.

The once-massive Category 4 hurricane brought welcome rainfall to a drought-stricken state after making landfall Wednesday afternoon between Puerto San Andresito and San Jaunico, a sparsely populated area of fishing villages on the Pacific coast of the peninsula.

Wind gusts and heavy rains blew down dozens of trees and lamp posts in Loreto, the nearest significant resort town to the area where Jimena made landfall, according to Humberto Carmona, a city official manning an emergency response center. Loreto lies roughly on the other side of the narrow peninsula from where Jimena made landfall.

Officials said similar damage occurred in the small farming city of Ciudad Constitucion, where some residents said they had to flee their houses in the pre-dawn darkness after their roofs were blown off.

The area where Jimena made landfall is just south of the San Ignacio Lagoon, a nature reserve where gray whales migrate each year from as far north as Alaska to breed.

While the whales don't arrive in Baja until December, reserve Director Mario Alberto Rodriguez expressed concern about possible damage to the cabins, docks and other facilities used for whale-watching, an increasingly popular tourist attraction. Rodriguez pledged the reserve would be ready when the whales arrive.

The federal government said more than 11,000 people went to shelters in the peninsula at the height of the storm, but Jimena largely bypassed Baja California's best-known resort, Los Cabos, on the southernmost tip. The buffeting winds toppled signs, choked streets with mud and knocked out power, but did little serious damage. No injuries were reported anywhere in the state.

By early Thursday, winds fell from Tuesday's roaring 150 mph (240 kph) Category 4 blasts to near 60 mph (95 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center reported. It predicted the storm would weaken further as it runs north up the Baja peninsula, which is home to about 3.5 million people, including more than 150,000 U.S. citizens, according to the U.S. State Department. Jimena was located about 30 miles (45 kilometers) north-northwest of Santa Rosalia, and moving north near 7 mph (11 kph).

Officials said the storm's heavy rains might help alleviate the drought in much of northwest Mexico.

"Fortunately, this kind of weather phenomenon we're going through transports a lot of water," National Water Commissioner Jose Luis Luege Tamargo told the Cabo Mill radio station. "This rain will undoubtedly will fill up the aquifers of the whole region."

But Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said Jimena would not bring much-needed rain to quench Southern California's wildfires, and will instead head back over the Pacific Ocean.

Los Cabos fishing boat captain Ariel Rivero, 49, who grew up in Long Beach, Calif., was one of those expressing relief: his boat, the Great Escape, was undamaged.

"We really lucked out," Rivero said. "If it had hit Cabo head on, this place would have been a disaster," he said of the hundreds of tightly packed boats, some worth millions, and the surrounding resort hotels now basking in the calm.

"All those windows would have blown out, (boat) cleats breaking, antennas breaking ... it would have been a disaster," Rivero said.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Erika was losing strength as it moved west of Antigua and Guadeloupe with top winds of about 40 mph (65 kph). The storm was located about 260 miles (420 kilometers) east-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was moving west-northwest at about 7 mph (11 kph).

[Associated Press; By MARK STEVENSON]

Associated Press writers Martha Mendoza and Julie Watson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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