Dean Lashes Mexican Coast

Tearing into history as the most intense Atlantic storm to make landfall in two decades, Hurricane Dean today pounded the Yucatan peninsula, battering Mayan ruins and swinging toward oil rigs, the AP reports. Pummeling homes and trees in sparsely populated, mostly evacuated areas, the fierce Category 5 storm shrunk to a Category 3, and left no immediate deaths or major damage.

Jamaica and the Cayman Islands weren’t so lucky, suffering 12 deaths and severe damage. Mexican President Felipe Calderon will tour storm areas, some of which are still recovering from Hurricane Wilma, which slammed ashore two years ago. By the time Dean spirals toward the central Mexican coast tomorrow, forecasters say it will again be a muscular hurricane. (More Hurricane Dean stories.)