Hurricane Norbert Slams Into Mexico's Baja Coast

Hurricane Norbert slammed into Mexico's southern Baja California peninsula on Saturday with torrential rains and screaming winds, forcing scores of people to flee flooded homes.

This image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Norbert taken at 3:30 a.m. EDT Friday Oct. 10, 2008....

This image provided by NOAA shows Hurricane Norbert taken at 3:30 a.m. EDT Friday Oct. 10, 2008. Norbert is centered about 315 miles (510 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph). The hurricane is heading north-northwest but is expected to turn north-northeast during the day and head toward Mexico's coast. (AP Photo/NOAA)

(AP)

Norbert, a Category 2 storm with winds of up to 105 mph (165 kph), hit land near Puerto Charley on the southwest coast of Baja California, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

It was sweeping over a sparsely populated stretch of the peninsula, and was expected to cross the Gulf of California before making a second landfall Saturday night on northwestern Mexico's mainland — likely as a hurricane, the center said.

Baja residents fled to shelters in school buses and army trucks as floodwaters rose in their homes. Winds uprooted palm trees and the water rose knee-high in some streets of the town of Puerto San Carlos.

Related

At Turks & Caicos, Life's a Beach

The Heartbreaking Return to Galveston

WATCH: Returning to Galveston, Texas, After Ike

"We left our house because we were scared. Our house is pretty poor and the water was already coming in," said Maria Espinosa, 54, who arrived at a high school with her daughter and two grandchildren. They joined about 60 other people sitting on foam mattresses and blankets.

Streets became rushing, knee-deep rivers in Ciudad Constitucion, a town less than 50 miles (80 kilometers) inland in the southern peninsula. Furniture, car parts and trash cans floated down the roads, which were deserted except for a few patrolling police trucks and a soaked dog wandering down an elevated sidewalk.

The storm was passing well north of the resort-dotted Los Cabos on the southern tip of the peninsula, but its course was taking it near Loreto, a small town popular with tourists on the peninsula's east coast, which was under a hurricane warrning from Loreto south to La Paz.

The government also issued hurricane warnings along the coast of the northwestern, mainland border state of Sonora.

Authorities started evacuating people from low-lying areas in Sonora and opened 60 shelters capable of housing more than 6,000 people, said Willebaldo Alatriste, the state's civil protection director.