CANCUN, Mexico — Tourists fleeing Hurricane Rina crowded Cancun’s airport Wednesday even as the cyclone lost some of its punch on a course for Mexico’s resort-studded Caribbean coast.
Authorities evacuated some fishing communities and closed schools along the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, and NASA cut short an undersea laboratory mission near Key Largo, Fla., bringing the crew back to land.
Rina is forecast to remain a hurricane as it sweeps along Mexico’s most-popular tourist destinations Cancun, Cozumel and the Riviera Maya, today, though forecasters predicted it would continue to weaken.
Rina’s maximum sustained winds dropped to 85 mph Wednesday afternoon, down from 110 mph earlier in the day. It was about 180 miles south-southeast of the island of Cozumel, near latitude 18.1 north and longitude 85.8 west, and was moving to the west-northwest at 6 mph.
Lines snaked to the ticket counters in the crowded Cancun airport as jumbo airliners headed to Canada and Europe waited in pouring rain.
Many travelers said they were already scheduled to leave Wednesday. But Janet Gallo, 41, of New York City decided to cut short her five day trip to Playa del Carmen.
“At the hotel, they told us they would make a decision whether to evacuate later today, but we didn’t want to wait. We would rather be home when it hits,” Gallo said.
Hundreds of residents from the fishing town of Punta Allen, south of Tulum, were taken to emergency shelters and a smaller group was evacuated from the atoll of Banco Chinchorro on Tuesday.
Luh McDevitt, 56, a furniture and interior designer in Cozumel, said her family was fitting hurricane shutters to the house and securing furniture.
“I am not really scared,” said the Cincinnati native who has lived in Cozumel since 2000. “Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was a Category 5. The worst part of the hurricane is after.”
Jorge Arturo Cruz, spokesman for the education department in Quintana Roo state, said schools were closed in communities along the coast and in Cozumel in anticipation of the storm.
The Mexican government also announced it was sending nearly 2,400 electrical workers, plus cranes, vehicles and generators to repair and maintain services as quickly as possible after the storm.
Soldiers, marines and state police had arrived with vehicles in Punta Allen on Tuesday to evacuate about 275 residents and take them to a storm shelter at a middle school; about 500 people were expected to be evacuated there in total, according to Quintana Roo state Civil Defense Director Luis Carlos Rodriguez.
The coastal area around Tulum is dotted with Mayan ruins, and farther north is Playa del Carmen, another popular spot for international tourists and the departure point for ferries serving Cozumel.
State Tourism Director Juan Carlos Gonzalez Hernandez said there were about 83,000 tourists in the state, with about 45,000 of those on a stretch of coast south of Cancun that includes Tulum and Playa de Carmen and almost 28,000 in Cancun.
There were only about 1,719 tourists in Cozumel, and many of them were leaving, Gonzalez Hernandez said.
At least eight cruise ships were changing itineraries away from the storm’s path, Carnival Cruise Lines spokesman Vance Gulliksen said.
The area was badly damaged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, when Cancun’s famous white-sand beaches were largely washed away.
Insurance officials estimated total damage at $3 billion.
The Mexican government issued a hurricane warning for the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula from Cancun to San Felipe. A tropical storm warning was in effect farther south on the peninsula from Chetumal to Punta Gruesa.
The projected track showed it curving east toward Cuba and the Straits of Florida by early next week, though the Hurricane Center cautioned “there is great uncertainty as to where Rina will be located by the weekend.” Information for this article was contributed by Adriana Gomez Licon of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/27/2011