It’s back to afternoon showers as usual, typical weather of Costa Rica’s rainy season, after a week in which Costa Rica felt the side effects of the disastrous Hurricane Dean as it plowed through the Caribbean region.
Though Costa Rica wasn’t hit directly by the category-five Dean, one of the most intense storms in recorded history, the storm kicked up winds that caused heavy rainfall and flooding in parts of the northwest province of Guanacaste and on the country’s east coast. In the Caribbean city of Limón, severe weather related to the hurricane caused infrastructure damage and evacuations.
On Tuesday, the N ational Emergency Commission (CNE) dropped the yellow alert for the Pacific slope and a green, preventive alert for the Central Valley and Northern Zone that it had declared Saturday, according to CNE spokeswoman Rebeca Madrigal.
“The effects of the hurricane are over for us.We’ve returned to the rainy season, with rains in the afternoon and evening,” said National Meteorological Institute (INM) meteorologist Gabriela Chinchilla.
After Dean swept across the Caribbean, killing more than a dozen people in Caribbean nations, it nailed southern Mexico’s YucatanPeninsula, where it caused significant damage in rural Mexico, though no deaths were immediately reported.
Parts of Costa Rica’s Southern Zone, central Pacific coast and Central Valley also saw heavy rains Saturday, prompting CNE emergency crews to take action in those regions. Local emergency commissions are sending supplies to flood-affected areas.
Emergency workers helped move 33 families from their homes in the town of San Cecilia, near the Guanacaste city Santa Cruz; in the canton of Sardinal, 47 people were moved to a temporary shelter Sunday night because of massive flooding; bridges were swept away by rivers in Paso Hondo de Santa Cruz, Sardinal and Santa Cruz, leading to Barrio Limón.
