Hurricane Patricia roared ashore in south-western Mexico as a Category 5 storm on Friday evening, bringing lashing rains, surging seas and cyclonic winds hours after it peaked as one of the strongest storms ever recorded.
The U.S. National Weather Service said a flash flood watch would be in effect through Sunday morning for Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio.
The airports in Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo and Tepic were closed Friday, but officials announced an air bridge Saturday to ferry stranded travelers out of areas hit by the storm.
One of the worst Pacific hurricanes to ever hit Mexico slammed into the same region, in Colima state, in October 1959, killing at least 1,500 people, according to Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention. (Photo: AFP)
According to the 2010 census, there were more than 7.3 million inhabitants in Jalisco state and more than 255,000 in Puerto Vallarta municipality. There were more than 650,000 in Colima state, and more than 161,000 in Manzanillo.
Authorities opened hundreds of shelters and sent thousands of emergency crews to aid people.
Mexican officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states, and ordered schools as many residents stocked up on canned food and other supplies.
More than 4 million people were displaced and over 1 million houses were destroyed or damaged in 44 provinces in the central Visayas region, a large cluster of islands.
Patricia's power while still out at sea was comparable to that of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 dead or missing in the Philippines two years ago, according to the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization.
By Friday it was the most powerful hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere, with a central pressure of 880 millibars and maximum sustained winds of 200 mph (325 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center.
Patricia formed suddenly Tuesday as a tropical storm and quickly strengthened to a hurricane. Within 30 hours it had zoomed to a record-beating Category 5 storm, catching many off guard with its rapid growth.
Streets were deserted except for police patrolling slowly with their emergency lights on. (Photo: AFP)
Its center was about 50 miles (75 kilometers) southeast of the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, where rain began to fall harder than it had all day but there was still no sign of strong winds.
By late Friday, Patricia was rapidly losing steam but was still a major hurricane with winds at 130 mph (215 kph), the center reported, or just above the threshold for a Category 4.
The nearest significant city, Manzanillo, was about 55 miles (85 kilometers) southeast and outside the zone of the storm's hurricane-force winds.
Patricia's center made landfall as a monstrous Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph (270 kph), but in a relatively low-populated stretch of the Jalisco state coast near Cuixmala.
"The first reports confirm that the damage has been less than those expected from a hurricane of this magnitude," President Enrique Pena Nieto said in a taped address late Friday. He added, however, that "we cannot yet let our guard down."
But authorities said there were no immediate reports of fatalities or the kind of major, widespread damage feared earlier in the day when forecasters warned of a potentially "catastrophic" landfall.
Milenio TV carried footage of cars and buses being swept by floodwaters in the state of Jalisco.
Television news reports from the coast showed some toppled trees and lampposts and inundated streets.
There were early reports of some flooding and landslides as the storm moved over inland mountains after nightfall.
Strongest hurricane ever recorded crashes into Mexico