VERACRUZ, Mexico, Aug. 22 Hurricane Dean was over the Bay of Campeche headed for landfall near Veracruz, Mexico, early Wednesday after raking the Yucatan peninsula.
Dean was a Category 1 storm with sustained winds of 80 mph, less than half the windspeed of the Category 5 storm Dean was when it hit the Yucatan early Tuesday, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
At 5 a.m., Dean was traveling west-northwest at 20 mph about 120 miles northeast of Veracruz and some strengthening was forecast before making landfall in that vicinity, forecasters said.
Dean was the third-most-powerful Atlantic hurricane at landfall, ranking behind the Florida Keys' 1935 Labor Day hurricane and Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
Yet by Wednesday morning, no storm-associated deaths were reported in the Yucatan, a Palm Beach (Fla.) Post correspondent reported. Emergency officials and the military began scouring jungle areas and villages soon after Dean passed.
However, Dean was blamed for at least 13 deaths in Dominica, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique and St. Lucia.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
