Part of the damage at the Central American Stadium caused by extreme weather conditions. (Photo WAPA)

Mayaguez, PR - The stage that was to serve as the scene for tonight’s main attraction for the 2010 Central American & Caribbean Games was totally destroyed due to a severe weather condition that spurned high velocity winds and rain to the West coast area of Puerto Rico.

According to the National Weather Service, a thunderstorm was recorded at 12:37 noon and the Doppler radar indicated that it packed winds of 35-50 mph.

Two persons were injured, one of them had to be flown to San Juan for an amputation of his fingers. The freak weather caused tonight’s much anticipated Gala Inaugural presentation to be cancelled. However, this will not affect the games that are scheduled to begin tomorrow as planned.

The Inauguration that has over 400 dancers, major presentations from the islands top stars and cultural institutions such as, Olga Tañon, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Wisin & Yandel and Bernie Williams and accompanied by fireworks, lasers and the lighting of the games official torch that has circled the island and traveled through all of the 78 island municipalities will now be held tomorrow.

The mayor of Mayagüez, José Guillermo Rodríguez spoke at the emergency press conference held at 3 PM today and stated that Mayagüez has a resiliency to survive major disasters. “We survived a terrible earthquake, fire and tsunami that occurred at the earlier part of the century after each deadly occurrence Mayagüez rose up better and stronger.” He continued, “what happened today was unfortunate, but not severe and our response was there in less than five minutes to address the situation. The games will continue as planned and tomorrow we will have the best inauguration in the history of these games.”   

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