Towns along Mexico’s southwestern coast are dealing with torrential rain, flooding and landslides after tropical storm John strengthened back into a Category 1 hurricane on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
John is considered a “zombie” storm – a term referring to systems that dissipate before strengthening back into a storm. After slamming into Mexico as a deadly Category 3 hurricane on Monday night, it dissipated before returning as a hurricane, battering Mexico’s Pacific coast. Even after initially dissipating, remnants of the storm continued to move along the coast, bringing continuous rainfall.
In the resort city of Acapulco, which still hasn’t fully recovered from the destruction of Hurricane Otis last year, several neighborhoods were flooded and residents in at-risk areas were told to evacuate to temporary shelters. Parts of the city have received over 500mm of rain this week, and 431mm over just the past 24 hours.
A video posted on social media shows a taxi being carried away by the raging floodwaters with people still inside. The car eventually came to a stop and the passengers were carried away to safety by authorities nearby.
Emergency workers have been deployed to the city with rafts and boats to rescue those trapped by the rising waters, Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda said.
Officials have suspended operations at the Acapulco airport and schools across the state have been ordered to close until further notice.
In rural towns around Acapulco, residents have reported temporary power outages from the rain. Some markets have closed, preventing people from buying critical supplies to deal with the storm.
The renewed hurricane is still expected to bring “very heavy to extraordinary” amounts of rain, strong winds and high waves in the southwestern part of the country, the Mexican National Water Commission said in a statement on Thursday.
Along Guerrero’s Benito Juárez municipality, a river has started overflowing from a section of its bank, with water levels almost reaching the height of a bridge overhead. Residents fear it could flood parts of the town of San Jerónimo. Officials there are urging people to avoid approaching the riverbank and bridge.
Hurricane John was located about 120 km west of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero at noon ET on Thursday, with maximum sustained winds of 120 km per hour.
The storm is expected to drop 10 to 20 inches of rain across the states of Guerrero and Michoacán through Friday, and up to six inches across Colima and western Oaxaca.