MANZANILLO, Mexico — Residents of a stretch of Mexico’s Pacific Coast dotted with resorts and fishing villages boarded up homes and bought supplies ahead of Friday’s arrival of Hurricane Patricia, a monster Category 5 storm that forecasters warned could be catastrophic.

Officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states that contain the bustling port of Manzanillo and the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta. The governor of Colima ordered schools closed on Friday, when the storm was forecast to make what the U.S. National Hurricane Center called a “potentially catastrophic landfall.”

Rain pounded Manzanillo late Thursday while people took last-minute measures ahead of Patricia, which quickly grew from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane, leaving authorities scrambling to make people safe.