(AP)
Updated: 2007-09-04 09:58

Across the border in Belize City, skies grew increasingly cloudy and winds kicked up as residents boarded windows and lined up for gas. Tourists competed for the last seats on flights to Atlanta and Miami. Police went door-to-door forcing evacuations. Liquor sales were banned, and stores were running out of plywood and other supplies.

"I just wish they had more airplanes to take care of everyone who has to leave," said Atlanta, Georgia, resident Mitzi Carr, 48, who cut short her weeklong vacation on Hatchet Caye.

Belize is still cleaning up from last month's Hurricane Dean, which killed 28 people as plowed through the Caribbean and slammed into Mexico as a Category 5 storm just north of Felix's track. Dean damaged crops everywhere it passed, including an estimated $100 million in Belize alone.

"I stopped cleaning debris and trees from my yard. Might just get messed up again," Wayne Leonardo said in Belize City.

Over the weekend, Felix toppled trees, flooded homes and forced tourists indoors on the Dutch islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, but caused little damage. It then grew to a Category 5 storm Monday before losing a bit of its punch.

This is only the fourth Atlantic hurricane season since 1886 with more than one Category 5 hurricane, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only 31 such storms have been recorded in the Atlantic, including eight in the last five seasons.

If Felix regains Category 5 winds before striking land, it would be the first time in recorded history that two such killer storms have made landfall in the same season, hurricane specialist Jamie Rhome said in Miami.

At 5 pm EDT, Felix remained a fearsome hurricane, though it had a very small wind field, with hurricane-force winds extending just 30 miles from its center. It was centered 250 miles east of the Nicaragua-Honduras border, moving west at 20 mph.

Off Mexico's Pacific coast, meanwhile, Tropical Storm Henriette was nearing hurricane strength on a path to hit the resort-studded tip of the Baja California Peninsula on Tuesday.

With maximum sustained winds near 70 mph, Henriette caused flooding and landslides that killed six people in Acapulco. Three died when a boulder fell on their home, and three when a landslide hit their house.

At 5 pm EDT, Henriette was centered 185 miles south-southeast of the tip of the peninsula, pushing waves up to 22 feet high as it moved northwest at 9 mph.

Meterologist Rebecca Waddington warned that both hurricanes could shift course. "Even if the forecast is perfect, that's only forecasting where the center of the storm is going to go," she said. "So everyone in the area needs to be aware of it."

      1   2     

      1   2