Hurricane Rick Plows Into Mexico Less Powerful Storm Finds People Better Prepared

Hurricane Rick walloped Mexico’s southern coast, an area still hurting from last month’s visit by Hurricane Pauline. But residents learned their lesson and they were prepared.

Mindful of the extraordinary force of Pauline, villagers who greeted that storm with cynicism fled to sturdy houses on high ground for Rick’s arrival Sunday evening and stayed away from the banks of rivers.

And while Pauline killed at least 230 people in its charge up the coastline, not a single death was reported in Rick’s romp.

It also helped that Rick, a Category 1 hurricane, was not nearly as strong as Pauline, a Category 4 - the second most severe level and the same as Hurricane Andrew, which hit south Florida in 1992.

‘It wasn’t that bad this time because we were prepared,” Floselo Palomec Antonio, 37, said Monday as he made the rounds in Puerto Escondido selling mescal, a cactus-based liquor.

“We picked up experience with Pauline,” Palomec said. “This time people weren’t caught asleep on the sides of the rivers.”

Hurricane Rick reached Oaxaca’s coast Sunday evening, washing out roads, toppling trees, destroying crops and picking apart flimsy homes.

By Monday, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, then to a tropical depression as it moved inland over the neighboring southern state of Chiapas.

Chiapas officials nervously watched for signs of flooding along the coast and in upland river valleys, already saturated by three previous storms. In the coastal town of Arriaga, officials reported uninterrupted rains since late Sunday.

Officials evacuated families near rising rivers in the town of Tuxtla Gutierrez early Monday, a Civil Protection spokesman said.

At its strongest, Rick’s 85-mph winds were much weaker than Pauline’s 115-mph winds.