Hurricane Jimena, a powerful Category 4 storm, moved toward Mexico's Baja California Peninsula on Tuesday, forcing tourists to flee the Los Cabos resort area at the peninsula's southern tip, but many poor residents concerned about looting refused to leave their unsafe homes. Jimena, with winds of nearly 250 kilometers per hour (kph), was expected to brush Los Cabos by Tuesday evening before making landfall in a sparsely populated area. Jimena was close to being declared a potentially catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. Residents, many of them poor hotel workers or builders, gathered into shelters, and U.S. tourists sought early flights home to avoid the strong winds and rain. Police, firefighters, and navy personnel drove through shantytowns, trying to persuade 10,000 people in the Los Cabos area to evacuate flimsy shacks made of wood and plastic sheeting. While the center of the storm was forecast to pass west and north of the city, another 20,000 people were expected to evacuate elsewhere in the peninsula. Schools, many ports, and most businesses were closed. Tuesday morning, Jimena was a Category 4 storm that weakened slightly as it moved north-northwest near 19 kph, a path expected to continue for several days, the NHC said. Hurricane-force winds extended as far as 75 kilometers from Jimena's eye and tropical storm-force winds extended 220 kilometers.
