Emergency services in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala went on high alert Wednesday ahead of tropical storm “Adrian” that was expected to hit Central America’s Pacific coast in the next few hours.

Local authorities braced for strong winds and torrential rain with the storm expected to make landfall on Thursday.
“Given the trajectory of the storm, we have decided to introduce a state of emergency in order to protect the population,” said Mauricio Ferrer, director of the Salvadoran National Committee on Emergencies.

Authorities in Nicaragua and Costa Rica said they were monitoring the storm before making any decisions.
Central America is still recovering from flooding triggered by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed more than 11,000 in the region and left some 1.5 million homeless.

Just before 1800 GMT the center of the storm was located over the ocean, some 195 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of the Salvadoran capital. It was moving towards the northwest at a speed of 15 kilometers (nine miles) per hour.

Martin Nelson with the Hurricane Center said that it was “rare, although not unheard of,” for a storm that gathers in the Pacific to move eastward and across Central America. “It’s been a few years since that happened,” Nelson said.
Adrian is projected to make landfall somewhere between Guatemala and El Salvador late Thursday.

“Rainfall accumulations of six to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) with isolated higher amounts of near 20 inches (50 centimeters) can be expected,” the Hurricane Center said in a statement.

“These rains are likely to cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.”
El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the southern Mexican state of Chiapas have been under alert since Wednesday in preparation for the hurricane’s arrival.

In El Salvador, Family Affairs minister Auda Prieto said the government had seven tonnes of beans, rice and corn ready for emergency delivery, enough to feed some 500,000 families.

Salvadoran rivers have already began to overflow, forcing the evcuation of some 19,000 people, said General Gustavo Perdomo, a top emergency coordinator.
In the capital San Salvador, markets were bursting with customers buying emergency supplies.

“For anyone who has children the situation is worrysome,” said Victor Campos, 30, who was at San Salvador’s main open air market with his wife. “In El Salvador we are accustomed to earthquakes and storms, but I don’t think anyone expected a hurricane,” he said.

Campos bought bread, chicken, and sacks of beans and rice for his family.
Umbrellas were in short supply, but street vendors were doing brisk business selling water ponchos and hardware stores were busy selling flashlights and batteries.

“It’s been a crazy sales day with this of Adrian,” said hardware store owner Jose Salome. “We ran out of batteries in minutes, and we’re already out of flashlights.”