LA CEIBA, Honduras — Hurricane Felix roared ashore early this morning as a fearsome Category 5 storm — the first time in recorded history that two top-scale storms have come ashore in the same season. The storm hit near the swampy Nicaragua-Honduras border, home to thousands of stranded Miskito Indians dependent on canoes to make their way to safety.

Twenty fishermen were missing, and communication to the area was cut off.

Meanwhile, off Mexico's Pacific coast, Tropical Storm Henriette strengthened into a hurricane with 75 mph winds and the U.S. National Hurricane Center said it was churning toward the upscale resort of Cabo San Lucas, popular with Hollywood stars and sea fishing enthusiasts.

Today, in the final hours before Hurricane Felix was expected to hit, Grupo Taca Airlines frantically airlifted tourists from the Honduran island of Roatan, popular for its pristine reefs and diving resorts, while the U.S. Southern Command said in a statement that a Chinook helicopter evacuated 19 U.S. citizens, including tourists and members of U.S. Joint Task Force-Bravo who were visiting the island.

Bob Shearer, 54, from Butler, said he was disappointed his family's scuba diving trip to Roatan was cut short by the evacuation order.

"I only got seven dives in. I hope they didn't jump the gun too soon," he said as he waited for a flight home.

Some 350 people were evacuated along Nicaragua's coast. Many other Miskito Indians refused to leave low-lying areas and head to shelters set up in schools, and the newspaper La Prensa reported that 20 fishermen were missing.

Communication to the area was cut off, and it was impossible to find out what was happening as the storm's winds began hitting the remote, swampy area, much of it reachable only by canoe. The Nicaraguan government sent in some soldiers before the storm hit, but was preparing to send in more help once the hurricane passed.

Hurricane Dean came ashore just last month as a Category 5 storm, and Felix's landfall marked the first time that two Category 5 hurricanes have hit land in a season since 1886, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only 31 such storms have been recorded in the Atlantic, including eight in the last five seasons.

"This is an extremely dangerous and potentially catastrophic hurricane. We just hope everybody has taken the precautions necessary to protect life and property," said Richard Pasch, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.

Felix was projected to rake central Honduras, slam into Guatemala and then cut across southern Mexico, well south of Texas.