2nd Hurricane in a Week Ravages Mexico’s Pacific Coast

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Hurricane Boris walloped Mexico’s Pacific coast with 90-mph winds on Saturday, flooding the lobbies of seafront hotels and tossing fishing boats against the seawall in this popular resort city.

A 6-year-old boy was killed when a roof collapsed in a working-class neighborhood, the Red Cross said. A second person in Acapulco was reported missing, but no details were immediately available.

Boris, the second hurricane to slam Mexico’s Pacific coast in a week, hit land about 60 miles northwest of Acapulco shortly before 10 a.m., the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The hurricane destroyed the homes of at least 100 people, downed trees and flung business signs into streets that were hubcab-deep in water.

Sheets of water blew off the ocean across the city’s seafront Costera Boulevard. Hotel employees with long-handled squeegees worked frantically to push seawater out of the open-air lobbies of luxury hotels.

No injuries were reported to tourists, who battened down in hotels, restaurants and bars, waiting until sunshine returned and they could return to the beaches.

“It just rained like crazy, and our electricity was out in the morning,” said Persha Carlston of Rochester, N.Y., in Acapulco to celebrate her 49th birthday.

Earlier last week, Hurricane Alma, with 100-mph winds, hit near the port of Ciudad Lazaro Cardenas, about 170 miles northwest of here.

It destroyed scores of flimsy houses and killed at least three people before heading back out to sea and weakening.

While causing havoc along the Pacific, the storms were welcomed in rain-starved northern Mexico, where a 4-year-old drought has decimated cattle and grazing land and been blamed for the malnutrition deaths of scores of children.