Stan in the Place Where You Live

Mexico and Central America reel under latest gulf hurricane

The name "Stan" does not typically inspire fear (even if it's better than "Stanley"), but a hurricane with that moniker has been wreaking havoc down south. In what is sure to be another blow to North America's hobbled energy supply, all three of Mexico's crude-oil loading ports on the Gulf of Mexico were closed, and state-owned oil company Pemex evacuated nearly 300 workers from gulf oil platforms, in advance of the hurricane's landing just south of Veracruz, Mexico, on Tuesday. In El Salvador, where civil war has wiped out forest cover that might have ameliorated the damage, lethal mudslides crushed areas south and west of capital city San Salvador. So far, around 66 people are known dead in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. A brief note to God: We get it. You can quit with the hurricanes now.