CHETUMAL, Mexico, Aug. 21 — Hurricane Dean hammered Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula with blistering winds and heavy rain on Tuesday, missing the prime tourist spots of the Mayan Riviera but causing damage in the provincial capital of Chetumal, before being downgraded from Category 5 down to Category 2.

Roofs were ripped off homes, streets were flooded, power lines were down and trees were snapped in two as Hurricane Dean, the most powerful Atlantic storm to hit land since 1988 with winds in excess of 165 miles per hour, passed overhead.

On the road from Felipe Carrillo Puertos, a small town about 100 miles north of Chetumal on the east coast where the storm was originally predicted to come ashore, uprooted trees blocked traffic until federal police officers cleared the way with chainsaws. In towns along the way, people were salvaging belongings and wares from ravaged homes and stores, lugging boxes and goods through sodden roadways. In the town of Limones, a sports center had been crumpled like a piece of paper.

In Pedro Santos, about 45 miles north of Chetumal, a grocer stared at the cement block walls of his store, missing its tin roof. “ We thought it would stand up pretty well, but it wasn’t the case,” said the grocer, Jacobo Reyes, 32. His mother, Carmen Bustillos, 54, said she could not stand living in a hurricane alley. “I think now we should rebuild in a new place, start all over again,” she said, crying.

Chetumal clearly took the brunt of the hurricane’s strike on the Yucatán, with streets inundated and debris everywhere. Hundreds of trees lay strewn along major thoroughfares, and thousands were without power and running water. But with no deaths reported, city officials said that they were relieved.