CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico -- Odile weakened to a tropical storm Monday night after hammering Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, damaging homes and tearing away the facades of luxury resorts, shattering car and hotel windows, and leaving lobbies swamped and full of debris Monday.
The storm, which made landfall near Cabo San Lucas the previous night as a Category 3 hurricane, toppled trees, power poles and road signs along the main highway, which at one point was swamped by rushing floodwaters.
About 30,000 tourists were being put up in temporary shelters in hotels, and Los Cabos International Airport remained closed. Emergency officials reported that 135 people were treated for minor injuries from flying glass or falling objects, but there were no serious injuries or deaths so far.
The Mexican government said in a statement Monday night that army and commercial planes would be sent to La Paz and Los Cabos airports to get tourists out of the area.
Luis Felipe Puente, national civil protection coordinator, said most of the area's power poles were blown over, leaving 239,000 people in the state of Baja California Sur without electricity. Many were also without drinkable water. Ports were closed.
"The entire corridor" between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas had been affected by the storm, said Deneb Poli, a medical worker at the Hotel Melia Cabo Real. She said all the hotel's guests and employees were fine, but electricity and phone lines were cut and cellphone coverage was spotty.
"There are parts of hotels that are completely collapsed. ... The damage is pretty extensive," she said.
All along the highway, homes and businesses were heavily damaged, with many reduced to shells with only the core structure intact. The walls of an OfficeMax collapsed into the parking lot. A convenience store was torn apart with the contents of its shelves dumped to the ground, and some locals helped themselves to food, water and other goods.
In the Colonia Unidad Real neighborhood, hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed.
After spending a harrowing night with her in-laws, Graciela Castillo Monroy, 44, and her family returned to find the roof of their home gone and all but two of its cinderblock walls collapsed. They piled what belongings could be salvaged atop a soggy mattress and began picking up the pieces.
"Well, time to start over again," Monroy said. "Because we don't have any other option but to forge ahead."
"From what we have seen around here, everything is pretty much destroyed," said Alejandro Tealdi, a 32-year-old resident of Cabo San Lucas. His home was damaged and flooded, but no one was hurt. "In the seven years I've been here, I've never seen anything hit like this."
Odile continued to lash the state of Baja California Sur as it marched northward with strong winds and heavy rains.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm had maximum sustained winds near 65 mph Monday evening. It was centered about 30 miles south of Loreto, at latitude 26.6 north and longitude 112.1 west, and moving to the north-northwest at 13 mph.
Odile was expected to drop 6 to 12 inches of rain with isolated accumulations of 18 inches, threatening to unleash dangerous flash floods and slides.
Forecasters also warned of a dangerous storm surge with large waves and drenching rains capable of causing landslides and flash floods.
Meanwhile in the central Atlantic, Hurricane Edouard strengthened to a Category 2 storm Monday with maximum sustained winds near 110 mph, though it was forecast to remain far out at sea and pose no threat to land.
The hurricane center said Edouard's center was 520 miles east-southeast of Bermuda, at latitude 29 north and longitude 56.9 west, and was moving northwest at 13 mph.
Information for this article was contributed by Peter Orsi of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/16/2014