Andres nears hurricane strength, to brush Mexico

[March 19, 2010]  ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) -- Tropical Storm Andres was expected to grow into the Pacific season's first hurricane Tuesday and deal a glancing blow to a coastline dotted with picturesque towns popular with foreign retirees.

Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the strip of coast from just south of Manzanillo to near Puerto Vallarta. To the south, the storm dumped heavy rains on Acapulco, knocking down trees, flooding houses and forcing a few people to evacuate their homes on Monday.

Forecasters said Andres was likely to brush the coast at hurricane strength around the port city of Manzanillo on Tuesday. Forecast models showed its center pushing up the coast near towns such as Barra de Navidad that are home to some American and Canadian expatriates.

At Barra de Navidad, Agapito Garcia Martinez, security manager at the Grand Bay Hotel-Isla Navidad Resort, said Monday that hotel staff were taking in beach furniture and taping up hotel windows, but had not yet been advised by authorities to so.

Weather was still sunny despite stronger-than-usual winds and guests were still checking in normally to the hotel, he said. But that could change as Andres draws closer, he noted.

"We expect to have a lot of water," Garcia Martinez said.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Andres could bring coastal storm surge as much as 3 feet (nearly 1 meter) above normal while dumping as much as 12 inches (300 millimeters) of rain in a few spots.

It was centered about 110 miles (175 kilometers) south-southeast of Manzanillo at 5 a.m. PDT (8 a.m. EDT; 1200 GMT) Tuesday, and it had sustained winds near 70 mph (110 kph), with higher gusts.

Tropical Storm force winds extended out 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the center in some directions.

It was moving toward the northwest near 9 mph (15 kph). The storm's winds were expected to build to 75 mph (120 kph), just over the minimum for a hurricane, by late Tuesday or Wednesday.

The forecast track showed it then weakening as it continues northwest along the coastline before veering west into the open Pacific a little short of the Los Cabos resorts at the tip of the Baja California peninsula Thursday night or Friday.

Late Sunday, Andres became the first named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, which began May 15 and ends Nov. 30.

It has been 40 years since it took so long for a named storm to develop in the eastern Pacific, according to the Hurricane Center in Miami.

Rains unrelated to the tropical storm resulted in the death of six people and left four others missing in the northern border state of Chihuahua after a van plunged into a rain-swollen river.

The state civil defense office said Monday that the bodies of two men, two women and two children -- all passengers in the van -- were recovered, but four passengers remained missing.

The accident occurred Sunday in the city of Cuauhtemoc.

[Associated Press; By NATALIA PARRA]

Associated Press writer Sofia Mannos in the Broadcast News Center in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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