A resident puts down bags with sand to protect the beach from the passing of the hurricane Dean, in Tecolutla, state of Veracruz, southern Mexico, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007. Hurricane Dean crashed into the Caribbean coast of Mexico on Tuesday as the strongest hurricane to hit land in the Atlantic region since 1988, and is expected to reach the coast of Veracruz on Wednesday, forecasters said. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)
Hurricane Dean struck the Mexican mainland Wednesday for a second time after battering oil platforms in the Gulf and forcing thousands to flee.
The sprawling storm made landfall near the port of Tecolutla in Veracruz state on the central Gulf coast as a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds reaching 100 mph.
It quickly weakened, with its winds falling to 85 mph and Category 1 status, as it pushed inland.
Dean's center hit the tourism and fishing town of Tecolutla just hours after civil defense workers in yellow raincoats loaded the remaining residents onto army trucks for a trip to inland shelters. But there was no escaping the sprawling storm's hurricane-force winds, which lashed at least 60 miles of the Veracruz coast.
Heavy rains caused rivers to rise in a region that saw hundreds die due to flooding and landslides in 1999.
Officials said they had received no reports of deaths in the Yucatan Peninsula, although driving rain, poor communications and impassable roads made it difficult to determine how isolated Mayan communities fared in the sparsely populated jungle. Earlier, Dean killed 13 people in the Caribbean.
Magdalena Gonzalez, 55, clutched a black plastic bag of belongings as she waited for the ride to a shelter, torn between fear of the storm and concern for what she leaves behind.
"I'm afraid it's going to take my house," she said.
South of Veracruz state, the storm surge flooded Ciudad del Carmen, a city of 120,000 people.
Dean became the third most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in recorded history when it plowed into the Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday as a ferocious Category 5 storm. It toppled trees, power lines and houses but spared glitzy resorts on the Mayan Riviera.
Greatly weakened from that overland journey, Dean moved across the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico, home to more than 100 oil platforms, three major oil exporting ports and the Cantarell oil field, Mexico's most productive.
Hurricane Dean satellite image at 19:45 UTC on August 22, 2007, courtesy of NOAA.
 hit the coast of 's mainland today as a Category 2 hurricane, with winds sustained at 100 mph.

Dean moved across the , eyeing over 100 oil platforms and several oil ports in the center of the country's oil industry. Over 14,000 workers in the area had to be evacuated.

The eye of the storm hit , a major tourist town. Over 10,000 people were evacuated.

Currently, there are no reports of deaths or serious injuries following the landfall in Mexico. However, the storm caused major damage to some areas with very heavy rains shutting down many roadways and flooding many homes.

Overall Dean is being blamed for at least 20 deaths in the Caribbean.

The storm has since been downgraded to Category 1 status.