Hurricane Keith Rips Into Gulf Coast of Mexico

MEXICO CITY —  Keith regained hurricane strength for a short time and hit land just north of Mexico’s gulf coast port of Tampico on Thursday with winds of 90 mph, ripping roofs off homes, causing flooding and forcing the evacuation of more than 2,500 people.

No injuries or deaths were reported as of Thursday evening.

Hurricane Keith ravaged Central America as a powerful Category 3 hurricane this week, passing over the Yucatan Peninsula and entering the Gulf of Mexico after weakening to tropical storm status.

On Thursday, it was a Category 2 hurricane when it hit the coast above Tampico, a sparsely populated area about 280 miles south of the U.S. border.

“Corrugated metal roofs blew off several wooden houses, trees were blown over, and electrical posts were knocked down,” said Tofik Salum, director of the civil defense agency in the northern state of Tamaulipas.

Hardest hit was the town of Gonzalez, northwest of Tampico, Salum said.

Keith deteriorated into a tropical storm hours later and was forecast to rapidly weaken as it moved farther inland. All warnings were called off except a tropical storm warning north from Tampico to the port city of La Pesca.

More than half the 2,500 people who were evacuated in the area returned to their homes Thursday evening, and only 222 of the 850 shelters the government had set up in anticipation of the storm remained open, Salum said.

Authorities, however, were on alert in Ciudad Victoria for mudslides in the hills ringing the city of 244,000 as the storm headed that way.

Earlier in the day, the storm dumped heavy rain on Tampico, which together with the adjacent city of Ciudad Madero has a population of nearly 450,000.

Television footage showed calf-deep water streaming through some streets in Tampico, forcing the evacuation of residents of low-lying areas there.