El Salvador slammed by Hurricane Adrian

PUERTO LA LIBERTAD, El Salvador – Hurricane Adrian slammed into El Salvador late Thursday, cutting off power and unleashing heavy rains in an area prone to severe flooding.

Some 14,000 people were evacuated as the storm, the first recorded Pacific hurricane to strike El Salvador, bore down on the Salvadoran coast.

The country’s National Service for Territorial Studies said the hurricane hit near the port of Acajutla, about 35 miles west of the capital, San Salvador. Its winds were weakened by contact with land but the full force of the storm, had yet to be felt.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Adrian had maximum sustained winds of about 80 mph before landfall.

In Puerto La Libertad, the beach resort closest to San Salvador, streets were deserted as rains sprayed across an agitated surf and waves pounded at the pier

“The electricity has gone out, the wind is getting stronger and it’s raining non-stop,” Jorge Alberto Turcios, a guard at a restaurant in La Libertad, said by telephone.

Adrian is the eastern Pacific’s first storm of the season.

El Salvador declared an emergency and closed schools once it became clear Thursday that the storm was headed its way. President Tony Saca appealed to people to obey evacuation requests.

“We understand that they are guarding their belongings, but lives are worth more than anything,” he told Radio La Chevere.

In some cases helicopters were used to evacuate people, most of whom were taken to improvised shelters at schools.

Rivers rose both El Salvador and in neighboring Honduras, both nations devastated by Hurricane Mitch – a Caribbean storm – in 1998.

The rains began to wash out some roads in both countries, officials reported.

At least one death was linked to the storm. A military pilot died Wednesday when he crashed a small plane that he was ferrying from San Salvador’s civilian airport to a military base as a precaution against the heavy winds.