Hurricane Rick poses threat to resort city

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Rick, the strongest eastern North Pacific storm in more than a decade, weakened slightly over open seas Sunday as forecasters said it could veer into resorts at the tip of the Baja California Peninsula by midweek.

The track of the Category 5 hurricane threatened to disrupt a major sport fishing tournament scheduled to start Wednesday in Los Cabos, where hundreds of fishermen — mainly Americans — were gathering.

The hurricane’s winds were still a howling 160 mph Sunday, down slightly from a peak of 180 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.

It was projected to move over cooler waters and weaken to between 109 and 86 mph before hitting land, but “Rick is expected to remain a dangerous hurricane for the next couple of days,” the center said.

The eye was centered about 450 miles south of Cabo San Lucas as of 5 p.m. EDT Sunday.

Los Cabos’s civil defense director, Francisco Cota, said authorities were already weighing plans to open storm shelters and start police patrols urging residents of low-lying neighborhoods to evacuate. “We foresee opening a lot of shelters,” Cota said, while noting the weather at the resort was still warm and mostly sunny Sunday.

The first inhabited land in Rick’s path is Socorro Island, about 300 miles southwest of Cabo San Lucas, where about 103 personnel from the Mexican Navy and other government agencies are based.

The mainland base that commands the detachment said Navy personnel on the island reported some wind and rain and lowered communications antennas to prevent them from being blown away when the hurricane passes near the island Monday. Isla Socorro is a nature reserve that hosts the Navy detachment as well as scuba-diving expeditions.

Rick was moving toward the northwest at about 14 mph and was expected to begin turning toward the northwest over the coming 48 hours before curving toward the northeast, the center said.