Extremely dangerous and strengthening 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, just short of Category 5 status, could rake the harsh desert region fringed with picturesque beaches and fishing villages by Tuesday evening, forecasters said. At least 10,000 families will be evacuated from potential flood zones, said Francisco Cota, the local director of Civil Protection. He said 60 shelters would be set up. “I think it’s going to be a substantial hurricane by the time it approaches,” said Richard Pasch of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. A spokesman for the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information said it decided Monday to move the conference — including more than 170 representatives from 54 countries — to Mexico City, even though some delegates had already arrived in Los Cabos. “The meeting has been planned for two months and the meteorological conditions, by their very nature, are unpredictable,” said conference spokesman Anthony Gooch.

Los Cabos Mayor Oscar Nunez said people in poorly constructed homes face “a huge potential risk” right now and they may be forced to evacuate.As rain started falling Monday morning, Mitch Williams of Orange County, Calif., waited at the airport to fly home from his vacation. “I know that it’s getting closer. … The hurricane can do a lot of damage if it hits at that strength,” he said.
Williams said poorer residents who live in shacks in this vacation town are not well prepared. “It will wipe them out,” he said. His advice for tourists was simple: “Get out.”
But on Cabo’s famous beaches, some tourists were doing just the opposite, getting into the Pacific to play in the hurricane’s big waves. Although city officials shut down the port, lifeguard Roman Dominguez with the Cabo San Lucas Fire Department said there’s no feasible way to close a beach. “We struggle a lot with surfers,” he said. “They’re looking for waves.”
Lifeguards perched in a tower looked on Monday as two women, one with her boogie board, another on a surf board, paddled into pounding surf under cloudy skies.

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