Dean is expected to slam into central Mexico
TUXPAN, Mexico Hurricane Dean regained some strength Wednesday over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico as it set its sights on Mexico's eastern coast for a second landfall in the coming hours.
Residents of Bacalar, Mexico, walk past a building downed by Hurricane Dean on Tuesday.
The storm's top wind speed increased to 100 mph (160 kph), making it a Category 2 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center's 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) update.
Dean was churning toward a second dangerous encounter with Mexico as government officials warned residents of Veracruz and other coastal towns to prepare for its arrival.
The storm is expected to hit central Mexico after crossing Campeche Bay, which lies in the southwestern corner of the Gulf of Mexico.
The Veracruz area is prone to flooding, and there is a nuclear plant near the city that supplies power to much of northern Mexico.
Officials said the facility would be shut down and its perimeter secured hours before landfall. High winds could affect some pylons carrying electricity away from the plant.
After raking Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula earlier, making landfall as a Category 5 storm -- the most extreme level on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity -- Dean was back to Category 1 as it entered the Bay of Campeche later Tuesday.
At 10 a.m. (11 a.m. ET), the hurricane center in Miami, Florida, reported Dean's center was about 95 miles (155 kilometers) north of Veracruz and about 75 miles (125 kilometers) east-southeast of Tuxpan. The storm was moving west-northwest near 18 mph (29 mph).
Heavy rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides in parts of southern and central Mexico, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
Authorities set up temporary shelters around Tuxpan with the capacity to hold thousands, according to Ramon Rodriguez, municipal president of the city.
The evacuation of 5,000 people in the urban areas and 4,500 people in the rural areas was under way, he said. Residents of unstable areas were being urged to go to temporary shelters as soon as possible.
On the Yucatan, Mexico's tourist areas -- including Cozumel and Cancun -- dodged a bullet, but President Felipe Calderon expressed concern for some of the peninsula's poor Mayan communities. Watch Dean batter Mexico »
"We still have to know what happened in the more isolated communities," Calderon said, speaking at a summit in Canada with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Ancient Mayan ruins in the town of Tulum, south of Cancun, held up well, resident Enrique Perez said. But the town was battered. Local officials said about a third of the hotels and beach cabins in Tulum were damaged, Reuters reported.
The Mexican president left the North American summit early, saying he would head to the Yucatan to "supervise the rescue missions" that will concentrate on the poorer indigenous communities.
Calderon said the government suspended oil production near Campeche, Mexico's main oil production center, as Dean passed -- cutting off about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day -- and evacuated nearly 20,000 workers from oil platforms in the area.
Downed power lines and damaged buildings were reported in Mexico and northern Belize. But even in the hardest-hit area, Red Cross officials said, no deaths were reported and only one injury, which was minor. See CNN correspondents track Dean through Mexico »
Streets were flooded in Chetumal, just south of the place Dean's center made its initial landfall around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday (5:30 a.m. ET) with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph (266 kph), according to the hurricane center.
Power was knocked out in the coastal city, where most of the 130,000 residents appeared to have heeded government warnings to seek shelter or evacuate.
Dean is being blamed for at least nine deaths in its march across the Caribbean, including two in Jamaica, two in Haiti, two in Martinique, two in Dominica and one in St. Lucia. See Dean's impact on the Yucatan Peninsula »
Mexico's Yucatan resort region was devastated in 2005 by Wilma, a Category 3 hurricane, but residents learned a lesson from the fierce storm.
"This was a piece of cake compared to Wilma," Tourism Secretary Gabriella Rodriguez said.
Ahead of the storm, the Mexican government deployed 4,000 troops to the area, and a state of emergency was declared in the state of Campeche.
Forecasters do not believe Dean presents a threat to the United States, although officials in Texas continued to prepare just in case the storm's path takes an unexpected turn.
A hurricane warning remains in effect along Mexico's Gulf Coast from Campeche westward to Tampico. A tropical storm warning was in effect from north of Tampico to Bahia Algodones.
