Wilma Whipping Cancun Coastline
Tourists Try To Flee 'Extremely Dangerous' Category 4 Storm
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Tourists rush to leave Cancun, Mexico ahead of Hurricane Wilma. Mexican authorities had ordered the evacuation of more than 33,000 tourists vacationing in two islands off Cancun. (OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images)
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A message to Wilma in in Palm City, Fla.: Don't blast us back to the Stone Age (AP Photo/The Stuart News)
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A hotel's watchman looks at the waves in Cancun beach, Oct. 20, 2005, as Hurricane Wilma threats the shores of the Yucatan peninsula. (Getty Images)
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Workers board the windows of a restaurant in anticipation of Hurricane Wilma in Cancun, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2005. (AP)
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Strong waves batter Cancun (AP)
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Lines of buses evacuated thousands from hotels while employees boarded up windows. Tourists packed Cancun's airport looking for flights home or to other resorts.
Mark Carara cut his family's vacation short by two days, and tried to get on a standby flight home to Colorado Springs.
"You hear it was the biggest storm on record, and yeah, that was the clincher right there," he said. "It was time for us to go."
Standing knee-deep in the ocean and drinking beer in Playa de Carmen, south of Cancun, Mike Goepfrich, of Minneapolis, Minnesota said: "As long as they give me beer in the shelter, and my kids are safe, we'll be fine. We're going to ride it out here."
Nearby, fisherman Rolando Ramirez, 51, was helping others pull their fishing boats from the water in preparation for Wilma's passage.
"People here aren't concerned about anything," Ramirez said. "They don't know that when the hurricane comes, this will all be under water."
The storm hit as much of Central America and southern Mexico was still recovering from Hurricane Stan, which left more than 1,500 people dead or missing. In the United States, Americans were still mourning 1,200 Gulf Coast victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"This is getting very powerful, very threatening," Mexican President Vicente Fox said of Hurricane Wilma. Hundreds of schools in the Yucatan peninsula were ordered closed Thursday and Friday, and many will be used as storm shelters.
Wilma forced MTV postponed the Video Music Awards Latin America ceremony that was originally scheduled for Thursday at a seaside park south of Cancun.
©MMV CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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