Tropical Storm Nears Yucatan Peninsula
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: To find out more about Tropical Storm Claudette, we're joined now on the phone by Mario Stoute, a local official in Cancun, Mexico. And, Mario, I'm glad you could join us for this second hour here. How is it looking outside right now?</s>MARIO STOUTE, CANCUN SPOKESMAN: It's raining, very rainy, some wind, nothing out of the ordinary.</s>WHITFIELD: Well, you've been through this before with tropical storms and hurricanes coming your way. How do you compare this to I guess the most recent storms that have come your way?</s>STOUTE: Very light, very light rain, nothing heavy right now. It's raining very light. We have winds of about 35 miles an hour in Cancun City. The storm center is about 30 miles southwest of Cancun at the moment.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, well, for those folks who have travel plans to be heading to Cancun in the next few days, what do you recommend to them?</s>STOUTE: Well, everything is normal here. We have no evacuation plans, and the tourists, we only sent them home at 12:00 last night, so they will be in their hotels in case anything presented itself.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, so we said just a little bit ago that a lot of the tourists who were staying in hotels have to perhaps be relocated from their beach front cabins.</s>STOUTE: No, we have no evacuation. We have no...</s>WHITFIELD: You're not doing that?</s>STOUTE: No. No, no one has been relocated.</s>WHITFIELD: OK. And so, what are the instructions that are being given to some of the tourists there?</s>STOUTE: Just to stay in their hotels for the night, and tomorrow -- or I would say today everything will return to normal as soon as the rain bands are getting farther away from Cancun.</s>WHITFIELD: So, these rain bands are only expected to take place overnight?</s>STOUTE: Yes, only overnight. And we have a reunion in the municipal palace at 8:00.</s>WHITFIELD: Is flooding ever a major concern for your area?</s>STOUTE: Well, we have been preparing for the last three days for this storm. We're in touch with the state authorities, and the federal authorities are right here now. And really no -- we have no damage reports. We have seven shelters open in case anyone wanted to go into the shelters. We have 130 shelters, but we really have no damage reported at the moment.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Mario Stoute, thanks very much for joining us on the telephone, chief of staff for the city of Benito Juarez, Cancun. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.