MONTERREY, Mexico — Tens of thousands of people were being evacuated Friday from Mexico's Pacific coast as the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere bore down on the popular tourist area packing sustained winds of 190 mph, down from 200 mph earlier in the day.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted the Category 5 Hurricane Patricia would make a "potentially catastrophic landfall" in southwestern Mexico later in the day.
The center described the storm as the most powerful ever recorded in the eastern Pacific or Atlantic basins. It warned of powerful winds and torrential rain that could bring life-threatening flash flooding and dangerous, destructive storm surge.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said during a radio interview on Friday that he didn’t want to create panic in the western states of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit that are in Patricia’s path, but that it’s important for people there to understand the magnitude of the historic storm.
