After Dean, Yucatan Counts Its Blessings

The Yucatan's good fortune seemed to affirm the fierce confidence of Mayan villagers, most of whom refused to leave their thatched-roof shacks before the storm. Some wielded machetes as they met evacuation crews sent to about 100 villages near Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Many villagers fled to secret caves that according to Mayan lore are immune to hurricanes and floods. Others, said Ligia Arana, a state legislator from Quintana Roo in the eastern Yucatan, declared "that God had designated that they not leave."

" 'If we're going to die, that is a matter for our God,' " Arana recalled villagers saying.

Dean made landfall at 4:30 a.m. in Costa Maya, a cruise ship port near Chetumal, a city close to the Belize border that suffered some of the worst street flooding and building damage in the area. Officials at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm registered the third lowest pressure at landfall -- a measure that indicates the intensity of the storm -- ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, trailing only Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and an unnamed storm in 1935.

Dean was the first Category 5 storm to make landfall in the Atlantic basin since Andrew, which devastated towns south of Miami in 1992. Andrew caused $26 billion in damage, equivalent to about $38 billion now. So far, damage estimates for Dean range from $750,000 to $3 billion in the Caribbean. AIR Worldwide, a risk management firm, estimated Tuesday that insured losses in Mexico from Dean are unlikely to exceed $400 million.

All weekend, Caribbean islands were bracing for cataclysmic direct hits that never came. First, on Saturday, Jamaica was largely spared by Dean. Then, on Sunday, the Cayman Islands escaped a direct blow.

But even a glancing shot from a storm this big can be punishing. The hurricane caused scattered mudslides and destroyed flimsy homes in Jamaica, which was hit by Dean's strong outer bands. On Tuesday, the country's electoral commission decided to delay the country's hotly contested Aug. 27 general elections until the damage could be assessed.

The threat posed by the storm was enough to send shivers across Mexico. The huge, government-owned oil platforms off the Yucatan's western peninsula were shut down before Dean's arrival, sapping Mexico of revenue from 2.7 million barrels of oil and 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. More than 40,000 tourists fled resorts in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and other Mayan Riviera cities. And President Felipe Calderón cut short a summit in Quebec with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to tour hurricane zones.

While Calderón was planning to find his way to hurricane-tousled parts of Mexico, Bernardino Yan, a laborer trapped by Dean in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, was trying to find his way out.

Unlike some here who suffered less than they expected during Dean, Yan was searching for a ride to his village when he was stranded without transportation as Dean approached.

"What worries me is my children," he said. "I don't know anything about them--my calls don't go through."

Ortiz, the airline retiree, predicted that Calderón would not need to be bothered with Veracruz and the surrounding region, no matter what forecasters said. Ortiz recalled that Stan, a major hurricane that threatened Veracruz with mass destruction in 2005, was taken so lightly by a state official that he joked it should be called Hurricane Satan. Stan spared Veracruz and, in Ortiz's opinion, so did Satan.

Varillas is a special correspondent. Roig-Franzia reported from Veracruz.