View of a breakwater after the arrival of hurricane Patricia in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on October 24 ,2015. Record-breaking Hurricane Patricia weakened to a tropical storm over north-central Mexico on Saturday, dumping heavy rain that triggered flooding and landslides but so far causing less damage than feared. AFP PHOTO/HECTOR GUERRERO

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico: Hurricane Patricia, one of the strongest storms ever recorded, crashed into western Mexico with rain and winds of up to 266 kph, hammering coastal areas but causing less damage than had been feared as it skirted cities and major tourist resorts. Mowing down trees, flooding streets and battering buildings, Patricia plowed into Mexico as a Category 5 hurricane on Friday evening before grinding inland. It rapidly lost power in the mountains that rise up along the Pacific coast and was downgraded to a tropical depression yesterday morning as it headed through central Mexico.

Thousands of residents and tourists along the coast had fled the storm's advance and ended up in improvised shelters. But there were no early reports of deaths and many felt they had escaped lightly. It appeared major damage was averted because the powerful storm did not hit large population centers. Patricia's edges brushed the major port of Manzanillo. Port director Jorge Bustos said the facility was still closed, but he expected it to be open again by yesterday afternoon. "We didn't have any major damage," he said. "Sure, gates, doors, some windows, volatile or light roofs, that sort of thing, but nothing that was a risk to our operations."

Further north, around 15,000 tourists had been hastily evacuated from the busy beach resort of Puerto Vallarta. But many were able to leave shelters and return to their hotels on Friday night. "I don't think there's going to be a big problem with the water," said Dario Pomina, 43, manager of the Posadas de Roger hotel in the center of Puerto Vallarta. "Things are more or less okay." The city woke to light rain yesterday and workers removed boards from windows. Public buses were up and running.

But residents of Las Juntas, a village where the Ameca and Mascota rivers meet about 10 km from Puerto Vallarta, were being evacuated on Saturday after a rapid rise in water levels overnight caused flooding, emergency services spokeswoman Veronica Diaz said. Patricia's center hit land on Friday evening near the area of Cuixmala, located between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta and home to one of Mexico's most exclusive getaways, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The resort at Cuixmala was founded by Anglo-French financier Sir James Goldsmith and has played host over the years to a colorful assortment of world leaders, musicians and eccentric billionaires. Maria Pavon, a Cuixmala reservations booker based in the inland city of Colima, said there were no guests staying when the storm hit as they all been evacuated. But there was no word yet on the state of the resort. She and colleagues had been unable to make contact as phone lines were down, Pavon said.

The area around Cuixmala is sparsely populated, but there are small towns, and it was not clear yet how much damage they had suffered. At one point generating sustained winds of up to 322 kph, Patricia was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Even though it lost some power before coming ashore, it was still a Category 5 storm, the strongest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Such storms are relatively rare and are capable of causing devastating destruction. Patricia's ferocious core was relatively small, with hurricane force winds extending 55 km from the center, the Hurricane Center said. This meant Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo were spared the worst.

In Puerto Vallarta, Brian Shelley, a tourist from Chicago, rode out the storm eating burgers with other guests at a boutique hotel on a hill. After talking one of his panicked traveling companions into staying, he was glad Patricia turned out to be less punishing than was feared. "I've seen bigger waves on normal days," he joked. In Manzanillo, Ramona Delgado, 45, who manages an apartment block, spent the night in darkness at home with her two children, but said yesterday morning the lights were back on. "It scared us a lot, we thought Manzanillo was going to disappear," she said. "There are only fallen trees on our block."

Rapidly Loses Power

Once inland, Patricia rapidly lost power. By mid-morning yesterday morning it had been downgraded to a tropical depression with its maximum winds down to about 55 kph, the Miami-based Hurricane Center said. The storm was located about 155 km northeast of the central city of Zacatecas, heading rapidly northeast at 39 kph, the center said. However, Patricia could still pose a flood threat. It was expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 20 to 30 cm, with isolated maximum amounts of 50 cm, over the Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, and Guerrero through Saturday, the center said.

In a brief televised address on Friday, President Enrique Pena Nieto said that "initial reports confirm that damage has been less than would be expected of a hurricane of this magnitude." But he urged Mexicans not to lower their guard yet. The government cautioned that ash and other material from the volcano of Colima, some 210 km from Puerto Vallarta, could combine with heavy rainfall to trigger liquid cement-style mudflows.

Patricia became a tropical storm on Thursday and strengthened with stunning speed as it closed in on the Mexican coast. Meteorological authorities compared it to Typhoon Haiyan, which killed over 6,300 people in the Philippines in 2013. The strongest storm on record was Cyclone Tip which hit Japan in 1979. - Reuters