Hurricane Stan
Hurricane Stan was the eighteenth named
tropical storm and eleventh
hurricane of the
2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the sixth of seven
tropical cyclones (three hurricanes, two of them major, three tropical storms and one tropical depression) to make landfall in Mexico. Stan was a relatively weak storm that only briefly reached
hurricane status. It was embedded in a larger non-tropical system of rainstorms that dropped torrential rains in the
Central American countries of
Guatemala and
El Salvador and in southern
Mexico, causing flooding and mudslides that led to at least 1,662 and possibly up to 2,000 deaths; Stan is estimated to be directly responsible for 80 of these.
A tropical wave, which moved off the
African coast on
September 17, formed a
low pressure area when it reached the western
Caribbean Sea and organized into a tropical depression on
October 1. Off the coast of the
Yucatán Peninsula, it strengthened into Tropical Storm Stan at 1:35 am CDT (0635 UTC)
October 2. Stan became just the second 'S' named storm since naming began, the other being
Sebastien of 1995.
Stan made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula and weakened to a tropical depression, but regained tropical storm strength upon reemerging into the
Bay of Campeche. By 4 am CDT
October 4 (0900 UTC), it had sufficiently strengthened to be given hurricane status. Stan made landfall later that morning in the east-central coast of
Mexico, south of
Veracruz, as a Category 1 hurricane on the
Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, then weakened to a tropical storm early that afternoon.
Hurricane Stan's ability to create havoc in the mountainous regions of southern Mexico and Central America due to
landslides and
flooding meant that the U.S.
National Hurricane Center did not stop issuing advisories on it until
October 5 at 0900 UTC.
Around the time of Stan's existence, torrential rainstorms dropped upwards of 20 inches (500 mm) of rain, causing severe flash floods, mud slides, and crop damage (particularly to the
coffee crop which was close to harvest) over portions of
Mexico and
Central America, including
Guatemala,
El Salvador,
Nicaragua,
Honduras, and
Costa Rica. Most of the rainstorms were non-tropical in nature and impossible to relate to the hurricane; however, the impact of the larger weather system can be considered as a whole.
As of
November 11,
2005, the official death toll now stands at 1,620.
Hundreds more have been reported missing and are feared dead throughout the region. One estimate has the death toll above 2,000 in
Guatemala alone. The final death toll will likely never be known due to the extensive decomposition of bodies in the
mud. Note that only 80-100 of the deaths were estimated to have been as a result of Stan; the rest were not caused by Stan itself but were the result of the large system of non-tropical rains that had spawned the hurricane.
[NHC end-of-season summary]Most of the reported fatalities at this point have been as a result of the flooding and mudslides, although eight of the deaths in
Nicaragua were as a result of a boat carrying migrants from
Ecuador and
Peru that ran ashore. A large portion of the figure comes from one village alone, as a mudslide completely destroyed the village of
Panabaj in Guatemala's
Sololá department.
Stan has been compared to
Hurricane Mitch of 1998,
Hurricane Cesar-Douglas of 1996, and
Hurricane Diana of 1990.
Guatemala
On
October 11 at least 1,500 people were confirmed to have died, and up to 3000 were believed missing. Many communities were overwhelmed, and the worst single incident appears to have occurred in
Panabaj, an impoverished
Maya village in the highlands near
Lake Atitlán in
Sololá department. The mayor has declared that the communities are graveyards and all people who are missing are counted as dead.
Piedra Grande, a
hamlet in the municipality of
San Pedro Sacatepéquez, was also destroyed. Floods and mudslides have obliterated the community of about 1,400 people, and it is feared that most or all of the population of the community lost their lives. The government has stated that they do not know what is going on in the southwest of the country, and particularly in the
San Marcos department because a vital
bridge was destroyed at
El Palmar, Quetzaltenango, cutting the region off from the rest of the country. There are reported
petrol shortages, including in
Quetzaltenango.
El Salvador
The eruption of the
Santa Ana volcano, located near the capital
San Salvador, on
October 1 compounded the problems, which led to even more destructive floods and mudslides from Stan.
A
state of emergency was declared. According to the director of El Salvador's National Emergency Centre, 300 communities were affected by the floods, with over 54,000 people forced to flee their homes. A state of emergency has also been called for in
Guatemala by
President Ã"scar Berger where 36,559 people were reported in emergency shelters. Some
looting has also been reported, a scene reminiscent of
Hurricane Katrina five weeks previous. A spokesman for the Salvadoran
Red Cross said that "the emergency is bigger than the rescue capacity, we have floods everywhere, bridges about to collapse, landslides and dozens of roads blocked by mudslides". The
Pan-American Highway has been cut off by mudslides leading into the capital,
San Salvador, as well as several other roads. 72 deaths have been confirmed in El Salvador.
Mexico
Some 100,000 inhabitants of the
Sierra de los Tuxtlas region on the Gulf Coast were evacuated from their homes, and incidents of mild flooding as well as wind damage (such as uprooted trees and roofs ripped off houses) were reported from coastal areas of
Veracruz, including the
port of Veracruz,
Boca del RÃo,
San Andrés Tuxtla,
Santiago Tuxtla,
Minatitlán and
Coatzacoalcos, as well as state capital
Xalapa further inland. The
armed forces evacuated the inhabitants of a dozen or so towns on the coastal plain, between
World Heritage Site Tlacotalpan in the west and the lakeside resort of
Catemaco in the east.
As the system progressed inland towards the
Sierra Madre del Sur to the west of the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the states of
Oaxaca and
Chiapas were affected with torrential rains. Areas of Chiapas near the
Guatemalan border were hit hard, particularly the coastal border town of
Tapachula. In Tapachula the river overflowed its banks and caused tremendous damage (including the destruction of all the bridges leading in and out of the town), meaning that it was only accessible through the air. The state government reports that 33 rivers have broken their banks and that an indeterminate number of homes, upwards of 20 bridges, and other infrastructure have been smashed in the storm's wake.
Some areas in the
Sierra Norte, in the central state of
Puebla, are also flooded. Three people died in a mudslide at
Xochiapulco Hill.
In addition,
Pemex had evacuated 270 employees from its oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, although no damage has been reported and the plants have been restarted.
The
Ministry of the Interior has declared states of emergency in the worst hit municipalities of five states:
Chiapas,
Hidalgo,
Oaxaca,
Puebla, and
Veracruz.
Honduras
There have been 7 deaths in
Honduras: 3 in
Lempira department, 2 in
Francisco Morazán department, 1 in
Santa Bárbara department, and 1 in
Comayagua department. 7042 people have had to be evacuated and 2475 homes have been destroyed, with the town of
Nacaome being particularly affected because the River Nacaome broke its banks.
Retirement
The name
Stan was retired in the spring of 2006 and will never be used again for an
Atlantic hurricane. It was replaced with
Sean for the .
["Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, and Wilma "Retired" from List of Storm Names." NOAA. April 6, 2006.] Stan was the 1st retired
S name since the
World Meteorological Organization started retiring names in 1954. It was also only the fourth
Category 1
hurricane to be retired since 1954 (the other three are
Agnes,
Cesar, and
Klaus). It was the first Category 1 hurricane to be retired since Hurricane Cesar in 1996. Also, it is the fifth weakest Atlantic Basin tropical cyclone to be retired, and the weakest to be retired for the
2005 season in the Atlantic Basin.
*
List of notable tropical cyclones*
List of notable Atlantic hurricanes*
List of 2005 Atlantic hurricane season storms*
NHC's archive of Hurricane Stan*
NHC's Tropical Weather Summary through November 2005*
NCDC's Atlantic hurricane season 2005 summary*
Cordinadora Para La Reduccion De Desastres En Guatemala (Conred)Guatemala's Disaster Reduction Institute(in Spanish).
*
USAID (US government) information on hurricane/flood relief and recovery efforts*
Al Jazeera: Hundreds die in Guatemala mudslide*
BBC: Guatemala storm deaths increase
