The Cape Verde-type hurricane sped through the Caribbean Sea, rapidly intensifying before making landfall on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

Although the second landfall did not bring winds as intense as the first, it brought more rainfall and caused devastating landslides in the states of Veracruz and Tabasco.

This included the towns and cities of Cancún, Playa del Carmen, and Chetumal as well as the islands of Cozumel, Isla Mujeres and Holbox.

[5] Air-evacuations of tourists were stopped[6] when Dean's outer rainbands closed almost a dozen[7] Cancún and Cozumel airports on the evening of August 20.

[9] With 20,000 food packages ready, the state of Yucatán, Quintana Roo's neighbor to the northwest, declared a green alert indicating a low but significant level of danger.

[10][11] World Vision and other international aid agencies prepared blankets, sheets, personal hygiene items and medicines for quick transport to affected areas.

[11] At 1500 UTC on August 19 a hurricane watch was issued on the Yucatán Peninsula from Chetumal to San Felipe and final preparations were rushed to completion.

As Dean began to cross the Yucatán Peninsula and maintained its structure better than forecasters had expected, these watches and warnings were expanded.

Storm surge and high winds severely damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings[19] and had the strength to crumple steel girders.

Extensive damage to fields planted with bananas, avocados, cucumbers, squash, jalapeño peppers, and other crops were also reported on the Yucatán Peninsula.

[31] Although Dean's rains caused flooding as far inland as Mexico City, where they closed a portion of Puebla-Mexico highway,[30] the damage was concentrated in the states of Quintana Roo and Veracruz.

[20] Between the hurricane's two landfalls, Dean affected an estimated 207,800 people in the states of Quintana Roo, Campeche, Veracruz, Hildalgo, Puebla and Tabasco.

The extent of the damage was never calculated at a federal level, but hundreds of villages lost access to fresh water in the days following the storm.

Where the landfall occurred at the town of Majahual specifically, and the state of Quintana Roo generally, communities took longer to recover than in the rest of the country.

[1] Quintana Roo Governor Félix González Canto reported that although the cleanup in the state capital of Chetumal was completed within three weeks, it took more than six months to fix all of the region's rural roads.

[36] The federal government was initially lauded for its swift and thorough preparation to which most observers, including the United Nations, attributed Dean's low death toll.

Members of President Felipe Calderón's Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) distributed bags of bread, funded by the nation's disaster relief coffers, carrying the party's logo.