Extremely dangerous Hurricane Jimena pirouettes towards Baja

As rain started falling Monday morning, Mitch Williams of Orange County, California, waited at the airport to fly home from his vacation.

"The hurricane can do a lot of damage if it hits at that strength," he said.

Williams said poorer residents who live in shacks are not well prepared. "It will wipe them out," he said. His advice for tourists was simple: "Get out."

But on Cabos' famous beaches, some tourists were doing just the opposite, jumping into the Pacific to play in the hurricane's big waves.

SHOOT: Meanwhile in the Atlantic, a tropical depression is about to form very close to the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico.

clipped from www.nhc.noaa.gov clipped from news.yahoo.com LOS CABOS, Mexico – Extremely dangerous Hurricane Jimena roared toward Mexico's resort-studded Baja California Peninsula on Monday, prompting emergency workers to set up makeshift shelters and chasing away an international finance conference. Jimena is just short of Category 5 status — the top danger rating for a hurricane — and could rake the harsh desert region fringed with picturesque beaches and fishing villages as a major storm by Tuesday evening, forecasters said. Heavy bands of intermittent rain moved across the resort town of Los Cabos on Monday evening. At least 10,000 families were ordered to evacuate their homes in low-lying areas and shantytowns, said Apolinar Ledezma, the municipal public safety director. Brenda Munoz, who lost her home to a 2001 hurricane, was taking no chances. "I remember when Hurricane Juliette hit with a lot of intensity. It flattened our home," Munoz said in the vacation town of Cabo San Lucas.