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A day after Hurricane Otis made landfall in Acapulco and caused flooding, massive destruction and looting, authorities reported Thursday that in the resort city of nearly one million people, 27 people had died and four remained missing.
This was indicated by the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, when presenting a balance of the serious damage to hotel, road, electrical and communications infrastructure which caused the hurricane to pass through the southern state of Guerrero and in particular Acapulco.
WATCH: Hurricane Otis LIVE | At least 27 dead in Acapulco and latest news from the powerful cyclone attack
Many of the once-elegant beachfront hotels looked like toothless giants the day after the hurricane. Category 5 will blow out hundreds – if not thousands – of windows.
Frustration with authorities appeared widespread. Although around 10,000 soldiers were deployed to the area, they did not have the tools to clear the tons of mud and fallen trees from the streets. Hundreds of trucks from the government electric company arrived in Acapulco on Wednesday morning, but were unsure how to restore service while the downed lines were under meters of mud and water.
Jakob Sauczuk was staying with a group of friends at a seaside hotel when Otis arrived. “We lay on the floor and some of us between the beds… We prayed a lot,” he said.
One of his friends showed reporters photos of the destroyed hotel rooms, which had no windows. It looked like someone had put the clothes, beds and furniture in a blender, causing widespread destruction.
WATCH: How Otis went from a tropical storm to a powerful Category 5 hurricane just hours before hitting Acapulco
Sauczuk complained that the hotel gave them no warning or place to shelter.
Pablo Navarro, an automobile worker who was temporarily staying in a high-end hotel, thought he was going to die in his room on the 13th floor.
“I took refuge in the bathroom and luckily the door held,” he said. “But there were rooms where the wind knocked down the windows and the door.”
Navarro was outside a grocery and home goods store near the hotel zone on Wednesday, while Hundreds of people carried everything from toilet paper to flat-screen televisions out of the muddy establishment.struggling to push the loaded metal carts through the muddy streets.
“It’s out of control here,” he added.
“It was very disastrous… it is unprecedented,” said López Obrador in his morning conference at the presidential palace, when he lamented the victims and the devastation left by Otis, who destroyed 80% of the tourist city’s hotel infrastructure, hundreds of businesses and streets and avenues.
The governor reported that among the fatalities was a soldier who died when a wall fell on him and explained that the missing included members of the Navy.
López Obrador said that the suspension of telephone service still persists and that work is being carried out to make the runways at Acapulco’s civil and military airports viable. where an air bridge will be established for the transfer of personnel and supplies and food, which he specified will be administered directly by the military.
The 69-year-old president moved by land on Wednesday to Acapulco to personally oversee damage caused by the hurricane.
Isabel de la Cruz, resident of Acapulcowas trying to move forward with a cart loaded with diapers, instant noodles and toilet paper to help his family after losing the tin roof on their home and all their important documentation in the hurricane.
“When are the authorities going to look at people?” he said.
Inside one establishment, National Guard troops allowed looters to take perishable items such as food, but made futile efforts to prevent them from taking household appliances, while outside some carried refrigerators into taxis.
It took authorities most of Wednesday to partially reopen the main highway linking Acapulco with the state capital, Chilpancingo, and Mexico City.. This allowed dozens of emergency vehicles, personnel and trucks with supplies to arrive.
Despite the complaints and frustration that prevails among residents, the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated Thursday that authorities were working quickly to restore electrical service, which still remains suspended in much of the area affected by the hurricane, and highlighted the recovery of access to Acapulco’s main highway as a very important achievement.
The state electricity company said on Wednesday that Around 500,000 users were left without electricity and only 40% of customers recovered service.
Acapulco Diamante, a beach area full of hotels, restaurants and other tourist attractions, appeared almost completely submerged in images recorded by drones and published online by Foro TV on Wednesday afternoon, with avenues and bridges completely hidden beneath a huge lake of brown water.
Large buildings had their walls and roofs completely or partially torn off. Dislodged solar panels, cars and debris were scattered around the lobby of one particularly hard-hit hotel. People waded through waist-deep water in some areas, while in others soldiers removed fallen palm fronds and debris from sidewalks.
Alicia Galindo, a 28-year-old stylist from San Luis Potosí, in the center of the country, was one of the lucky ones who received the call. Her parents and brother were staying at the Princess Hotel to attend an international mining conference when Otis made landfall Wednesday morning with winds of 270 kilometers per hour (165 miles per hour).
He was told the worst part was between 1 and 3 a.m., when “the windows started to fall, the floors broke, the mattresses flew, the doors fell, the walls were broken, they were literally left empty,” he said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. Fortunately, they escaped unharmed, he added.
But Galindo still hadn’t heard from her boyfriend, who was attending the same conference but was staying at another hotel.
Otis caught many by surprise on Tuesday when it quickly grew from a tropical storm to a major hurricane as it moved toward the coast.
“It’s one thing to see a Category 5 hurricane make landfall when you’re expecting a strong cyclone, but for it to happen when you’re not expecting it to be severe is a nightmare,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
Acapulco is at the foot of steep mountains where luxurious houses and very poor neighborhoods coexist with impressive views of the Pacific. It was once a destination for Hollywood stars for its nightlife, sport fishing and cliff diving shows, but in recent years it has been taken over by organized crime, driving many foreign tourists to the Caribbean waters of Cancún and the Riviera Maya or to beaches further afield. to the south, in the state of Oaxaca.
López Obrador recalled that Otis was a more powerful hurricane than Paulina, which devastated parts of Acapulco in 1997 and left more than 300 people dead.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
