Hurricane Julia hits Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast

Hurricane Julia slammed Nicaragua’s central Caribbean coast early Sunday, hours before hitting Colombia’s San Andres Island.

Julia started Saturday as a tropical storm but gained strength for most of the day and became a Category 1 hurricane shortly before turning slightly south of San Andres Island in the early evening.

Julia’s maximum sustained winds stabilized at around 75 mph late Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said. It is about 80 miles east-northeast of Bluefields, Nicaragua, moving west at 16 mph, and is expected to make landfall on the Nicaraguan coast before dawn.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has declared a “maximum alert” for San Andrés and the northern island of Providencia, and has asked hotels to prepare spaces to shelter vulnerable groups. San Andres officials imposed a 6 a.m. curfew on residents Saturday to limit people on the streets. Air operations over the islands were suspended.

There were no early reports of what impact the storm had on San Andreas.

In Nicaragua, authorities issued an alert to all types of ships to seek safe harbor as the hurricane followed a general path toward the Bluefields and Laguna de Peras areas.

Guillermo Gonzalez, director of Nicaragua’s disaster response system, told state media that high-risk groups had been evacuated from coastal areas by noon Saturday. The military said humanitarian supplies had been delivered to Bluefields and Laguna de Perlas for distribution to 118 temporary shelters.

In Bluefields, however, life appeared to be little changed on Saturday night, with people expressing reluctance to leave their homes.

A bigger threat than Julia’s winds is 5 to 10 inches of rain — up to 15 inches in remote areas — forecasters say the storm is expected to pour over Central America.

“This rain could trigger life-threatening flash floods and mudslides this weekend,” the National Hurricane Center said.

The remnants of the storm are expected to sweep across Nicaragua before bypassing the Pacific coast of El Salvador and Guatemala, an area that has been inundated by weeks of heavy rain.

In Guatemala, officials said Julia could inundate 10 provinces in the country’s eastern, central and western regions — the region most affected by the rainy season and with the highest concentration of the poorest.