MEXICO CITY – Lidia dissipated Wednesday after hitting land as a Category 4 hurricane near the resort of Puerta Vallarta, where one person was killed by a falling tree and two others injured
The hurricane knocked over trees and blew roofs off houses with winds as high as 140 mph (220 kph) before moving inland.
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Laura Velázquez, the head of Mexico's civil defense system, said one person died on the northern outskirts of Puerto Vallarta after being hit by a falling tree, and two others were injured elsewhere in the area.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday that Lidia’s winds were down to 35 mph as it dissipated about 145 miles (235 kilometers) north-northeast of the city of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city and the capital of the western state of Jalisco.
Lidia made landfall on a sparsely populated peninsula and then moved inland south of Puerto Vallarta, still with winds of 105 mph (165 kph).
Victor Hugo Romo, the head of the Jalisco state civil defense office, said several homes around the landfall area had their roofs blown off, and the Puerto Vallarta city government said about a dozen trees had been knocked down there.
Trees were also downed in the neighboring state of Nayarit.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Lidia's eye appeared to have reached land near Las Penitas, near Cabo Corrientes, a sparsely populated peninsula.
Lidia remained a powerful hurricane even after moving over land, with some highways briefly blocked in the region.
The state had 23 shelters open, he said. The Puerto Vallarta city government said a few dozen people had gone to shelters there.
In 2015, Hurricane Patricia, a Category 5 hurricane, also made landfall on the same sparsely-populated stretch of coastline between the resort of Puerto Vallarta and the major port of Manzanillo.
Local authorities canceled classes in communities around the coast. The expected impact came one day after Tropical Storm Max hit the southern Pacific coast, hundreds of miles away, and then dissipated. Rains from Max washed out part of a coastal highway in the southern state of Guerrero.
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