LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Jimena grew into a highly dangerous storm as it sped toward Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Monday, scaring tourists, prompting residents to sandbag homes and disrupting a top-level finance conference.

Jimena’s winds strengthened to nearly 155 mph, reaching near the threshold of a deadly Category 5 storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Category 5 hurricanes are the top of the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale and can be devastating if they hit land.

“I’m scared. I’m taking the kids back to the hotel right now -- I hope we’ll be safe there,” Gigi Hernandez, a tourist from California, said at a marina in Los Cabos, a lively resort area at the tip of the peninsula.

Much of Baja California is sparsely populated desert and mountains that are popular with nature lovers, surfers, sportfishermen and retirees. Los Cabos, which is more built up, attracts tourists to its golf courses, resorts and beaches.

Mexico, a major oil producer, has no oil installations in the Pacific. But some of its ports in the area have started closing due to Jimena, which formed and built up quickly last weekend.

The Hurricane Center forecast it would hit the area on Tuesday and move inland on Wednesday.

Los Cabos was overcast and drizzly on Monday.

The port of Cabo San Lucas was shut and a line of trailers formed as yachts, water taxis and glass-bottomed tourist boats were removed from the water for safety reasons.

Scott Mackey, 51, from Norfolk, Virginia, stocked up on water as he prepared to take shelter in the Sheraton Hotel’s convention center with his wife and other tourists. “We usually leave Norfolk to get away from hurricanes,” he said.

HEAVY RAIN FORECAST

Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the area. The Hurricane Center predicted significant coastal flooding and said: “Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.”

Economy officials from dozens of countries were due to meet in Los Cabos on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss tax havens, but the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development moved the talks to Mexico’s capital as the storm threat grew.

Hurricane Jimena is pictured south of the Baja California Peninsula in a satellite image taken August 31, 2009. REUTERS/NOAA/Handout

The meeting was “transferred to Mexico City because of the threat of severe damage posed by Hurricane Jimena,” the Paris-based group said in a statement.

The Hurricane Center said Jimena could dump 5 to 10 inches of rain on southern Baja California.

Jimena was located about 305 miles south of Cabo San Lucas and moving northwest, roughly parallel to the Mexican coastline, at 10 mph. Hurricane force winds extended outward up to 45 miles from its center.

Many tourists said they preferred to cut short their vacation than spend two days in a storm shelter.

“I don’t want to get stuck here,” said Neil Freese, 29, from San Francisco, as he hurried to the airport.

Jimena is the second hurricane of the 2009 eastern Pacific season to brush close to Mexico after Andres pounded the coast in June and swept a fisherman to his death in Acapulco.