Thousands of residents and tourists fled low-lying coastal parts of Belize as Hurricane Iris, the year's most powerful Atlantic storm, pounded into the coastline late Monday with winds nearing 140 mph. "We are in a state of emergency," government spokeswoman Arreini Palacio said. At 11 p.m., the center of Iris made landfall about 80 miles south-southwest of Belize City. It was moving to the west at 22 mph. Before the storm hit, Palacio said soldiers went door to door to evacuate people in this low-lying, seaside city of 65,000 people. The nation's capital was moved inland to Belmopan after Hurricane Hattie destroyed much of Belize City in 1961. While the evacuation was optional in Belize City, officials said it was mandatory for some coastal towns farther south and for offshore cays popular with tourists. "The village is full of people getting their families and getting out, getting to higher ground very, very quickly," said Karen Boudreaux, general manager of the Rum Point Inn near Placencia, about 70 miles south of Belize City. She said nearly every window in town was boarded up and the only road out was clogged with traffic. Boudreaux said she and her guests would not join the exodus, though officials in the capital said evacuation was mandatory. "There's no way out of here except driving north into it," Boudreaux said. "We are going to stay here and hope for the best. When the storm comes, we will go to the highest point we can on our property." Neighboring Honduras went on a state of alert, said Juan Bendeck, the emergency commissioner there. Local officials said thousands of people had left low-lying areas for higher ground. Civil defense authorities ordered emergency workers to be on alert in Guatemala, where Iris was expected to dump heavy rains in the north. A slight southward jog in the storm's path could bring it to shore near Guatemala's Puerto Barrios. "This is an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane," said Richard Knabb, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. "This is going to cause extensive damage wherever it makes landfall." The Hurricane Center warned that Iris could temporarily raise seas by 13 to 18 feet above normal, causing coastal flooding. Rainfall of five to eight inches could cause flash floods and mudslides inland. Iris gained force after brushing past Jamaica on Sunday with 85 mph winds that toppled some trees, tore off roofs and injured at least one person. Iris killed a mother and her two young daughters in the Dominican Republic on Saturday when a retaining wall collapsed onto their house. Farther east in the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Jerry faded into a disorganized tropical depression midway between Puerto Rico and Venezuela. It had been following in Iris' path with winds of about 50 mph, but by late Monday its winds had dropped to 30 mph.