Hurricane Willa batters Sinaloa, sparking floods, outages

Hurricane Willa slammed into Mexico's Pacific coast late on Tuesday, raking it with winds of 120 mph (195 kph) that brought power outages, buffeted buildings, and dumped torrential rain on tourist resorts where thousands of people had moved to safety.

Whipping palm trees, bending power lines and causing floods, the center of Willa struck the coast near the town of Isla del Bosque in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, where many coastal areas had been evacuated before the storm hit.

Willa, a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale was one of the most powerful hurricanes . . .