PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (AFP) – Monster Hurricane Patricia rumbled toward Mexico’s Pacific coast on Friday, growing into the strongest storm on record in the Western Hemisphere as the country braced for a potential catastrophe.

Authorities relocated some villagers, closed ports and schools in several states, and urged tourists to cancel trips as the hurricane headed toward landfall in the western state of Jalisco later Friday.

“No hurricane of this magnitude has ever affected the Mexican Pacific,” President Enrique Pena Nieto wrote on Twitter.

All stores were closed in the beach resort of Puerto Vallarta and shop owners placed duct tape in the shape of an X on their windows to protect them.

“I’ve had to give away tape to people who weren’t prepared,” said Ramiro Arias, owner of a frame shop. “We’re procrastinators. We don’t react until we see the situation.”

Despite the incoming storm, a swimmer was spotted in the water.

A handful of people waited at a bus station for their last chances to get out of town while others bought water and loaded vehicles with jerrycans of fuel.

Rain pelted the coast after Patricia mushroomed late Thursday into a Category Five storm — the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale — with maximum sustained winds of 325 kilometers (200 miles) per hour, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

The center said on its website that Patricia was “the strongest hurricane on record in the National Hurricane Center’s area of responsibility which includes the Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific.”

“Some fluctuations in intensity are possible today but Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous category five hurricane through landfall,” the center said.

“An extremely dangerous storm surge is expected to produce significant coastal flooding near and to the right of where the center makes landfall,” the Miami-based center added.