But he warned that the “phenomenon is continuing in its course” and asked people to remain in shelters. “We cannot let our guard down,” he said.

The governor of the state of Jalisco, Aristóteles Sandoval, said a little after 9 p.m. on Friday that in his state, at least, there had been no “irreparable damages” recorded so far, only “severe infrastructure damages” like blocked roads, flooding, damaged buildings, hotels and homes — all things that “can be repaired," he said.

“This gives us hope that we can move forward,” he said, “but we still need to be alert.”

The government of Mexico had declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in the states of Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco. Residents had stacked sandbags around properties and rushed to grocery stores to stock up on supplies. Thousands of people took refuge in shelters in cities across the region.

At the very center of the storm was Cuixmala, one of Mexico’s most exclusive and secluded resorts. The vast estate, which has played host to American dignitaries like Richard M. Nixon, Henry A. Kissinger and Ronald Reagan, began as a private residence for James Goldsmith, a British billionaire. Today, it is a resort and ecological preserve run by his daughter, crowned by the palatial Casa Cuixmala, a Moorish-style chateau that looms over a white sand beach and a private nature reserve.

Officials spent the day on the airwaves urging residents throughout the region to leave or prepare for the hurricane, which transformed suddenly from a tropical storm on Tuesday into a Category 5 storm on Thursday. The speed of that transformation took meteorologists by surprise.

“We are going to go through difficult moments in the face of a phenomenon that we have never seen before,” said Mr. Peña Nieto in a radio interview.