‘They’ve always forgotten us’
IN HURRICANE OTIS AFTERMATH, YEARS OF DEVASTATION FOR ACAPULCO’S POOR
ACAPULCO, Mexico – Estela Sandoval Díaz was huddled in her tiny concrete bathroom, sure these were the final moments of her life, when Hurricane Otis ripped off her tin roof.
With it went clothing, savings, furniture, photos and 33 years of the life Sandoval built piece-by-piece on the forgotten fringes of Acapulco, Mexico.
Sandoval was among hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were torn apart when the fastest intensifying hurricane on record in the Eastern Pacific shredded the coastal city of 1 million, leaving at least 45 dead. The Category 5 hurricane damaged nearly all of Acapulco’s homes, left bodies bobbing along the coastline and much of the city foraging for food.
While authorities were hard at work restoring order in Acapulco’s tourist center – cutting through trees in front of high-rise hotels and restoring power – the city’s poorest, like Sandoval, said they felt abandoned. She and hundreds of thousands others lived two hours of terror last week, and now face years of work to repair their already precarious lives.
“The government doesn’t even know we exist,” Sandoval said. “They’ve only ever taken care of the resort areas, the pretty places of Acapulco. They’ve always forgotten us.”
It’s a sentiment that has long simmered in the city but has grown as many accuse the government of leaving them to fend for themselves after Otis hit.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has deployed more than 10,000 troops to deal with the hurricane’s aftermath along with 1,000 government workers to determine needs. He said 10,000 “packages” of appliances and other necessities – refrigerators, stoves, mattresses – had been collected and were ready to distribute to families in need.
“Everyone will be supported, count on us,” he pledged last week.
But few of the dozens of people The Associated Press spoke to said they’d received aid from the government, nor were they expecting much.
Sandoval and her family have spent decades living a stone’s throw away from the beachside high-rises and luxury stores lining Acapulco’s chicest district, the Diamond Zone.
Living in a two-room concrete house with no potable water and unpaved roads, that glamor never reached their doorstep. Referred to by locals as the “sunken neighborhood,” Viverista is always hit hardest by natural disasters.
Three years ago, Sandoval beamed with pride when, after 25 years of saving, she put a foot of concrete on the floor and a new metal roof on her house so it wouldn’t flood every time it rained. But that seemed a lifetime away Friday as Sandoval and her children picked through their soggy belongings.
“I was so happy because finally I had a sturdy roof, and my house was finally beautiful. But now – this is the first time I’ve been able to cry – I don’t know what we’re going to do,” the 59-year-old said. “I don’t think I’ll live another 20 years to fix it.”
Their home was surrounded by ankle-deep, putrid water. Sandoval, her husband and two neighbors were sleeping under a sheet of metal propped against the house. She picked through scraps in her bedroom, taking note of what was ruined and planning how to ration water and gas for cooking.
Mexico’s government has tallied at least 220,000 homes damaged and says 47 people remain missing. Most residents expect the death toll to rise, based on the slow government response and overall devastation, with one city business leader estimating it will exceed 100.
Military, public security and forensics officials told the AP they were not permitted to provide details on the death toll or the search for bodies. Meanwhile, thousands of panicked family members desperately hunted for missing loved ones.