Hurricane Heads Across Southern Mexico

Uprooting trees, toppling streetlights and flinging tin roofs into the air, Hurricane Roxanne swept through a southern Mexican provincial capital Wednesday during a daylong march across the Yucatan.

Roxanne’s 75-mph winds tore through Campeche, a state capital of 175,000 people. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries in the city or anywhere else in the hurricane’s path.

The storm headed southwest late Wednesday, sending shrimpers and oil workers fleeing to shore before it hit the city of Campeche, on the western Gulf coast of the peninsula.

The U.S. National Weather Service said Roxanne would probably gain strength as it heads west over the Gulf of Mexico and menaces a broad swath of coastline.

The U.S. National Weather Service posted a hurricane watch for the Gulf on Mexico’s eastern coast as far north as Tuxpan, about 350 miles south of the Texas border.