Hurricane Simon pounds resorts and vulnerable towns along Mexico's Pacific coast

"Hurricane Simon pounded Mexico’s Pacific coast as a Category 3 storm on Sunday, its eye remaining just offshore as its most powerful winds and rain slammed people living between the Sierra Madre and the ocean.
The hurricane’s center swirled parallel to the coast, closing in on the Puerto Vallarta area, where its most damaging winds and rain were expected to hit around midnight and continue through Monday morning. Its maximum sustained winds weakened Sunday to 125 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, but it was still expected to

remain a dangerous hurricane.
Simon’s eye was moving northwest about 50 miles south of Cabo Corrientes at about 5 mph. A senior hurricane center specialist, Philipe Papin, said this westernmost tip of mainland Mexico was the most likely to take a direct hit from the storm. Cabo Corrientes is at the southern tip of Bahia de Banderas, the wide bay where Puerto Vallarta looks out to the Pacific.
Forecasters said the entire area between Mexico’s western coast and the Sierra Madre mountains could be affected.
“We’re expecting catastrophic wind and life-threatening storm surge impacts along that west-central coast of Mexico where the hurricane warning is currently in effect,” Papin said. “They’re also getting very heavy rainfall associated with the storm that’s likely going to produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides in areas of higher terrain along the Mexican coastline, and there will be significant swells.”" msn