After Otis, Mexico races to assess ruin
Dozens dead as extent of tragedy comes into view
MEXICO CITY — More than two dozen people were killed and three were missing after the most powerful hurricane to hit the Pacific coast of Mexico turned a popular tourist destination into a scene of mass devastation, shocking forecasters and government officials with its intensity.
The extent of the tragedy began coming into clear view Thursday morning as thousands of military officers, medical teams, and government officials confronted a devastated Guerrero state, much of which effectively was cut off from the world after Hurricane Otis made landfall in the early hours Wednesday.
“We are very sorry for the loss of 27 human beings,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday during his daily news conference in Mexico City after making a brief visit to the disaster area. “That is what hurts the most, because the material can be taken care of, and we are going to do it with great responsibility.”
The scope of the hurricane’s toll was still difficult to ascertain because access to the region was difficult and communication was still largely cut off. The hurricane struck with little warning after it grew with astonishing speed from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane packing sustained winds of 165 mph when it made landfall.
Authorities were particularly concerned about Acapulco, a port city of more than 852,000 people on the Pacific Coast that was in the direct path of Otis. Acapulco, the largest city in Guerrero state, was hosting an international mining industry convention when the storm hit. In addition, many hotels were packed with tourists.
Photographs and videos showed ravaged hotel rooms, doors ripped from hinges, and furniture scattered throughout city streets.
Frightened tourists hid in their resorts Wednesday night as the hurricane collapsed ceilings and shattered windows. Roughly 80 percent of hotels in Acapulco had been damaged by the storm, according to Evelyn Salgado Pineda, governor of Guerrero.
Winds ripped trees and utility poles from the ground, López Obrador said, adding that Acapulco remained without power, communication, and water. Beaches that once brought visitors from all over the world were now covered in piles of debris. Many streets turned into rivers of mud. More than 200 patients had to be moved out of damaged hospitals, said Rosa Icela Rodriguez, national secretary of security and citizen protection.
On Thursday, on the outskirts of Acapulco, residents could be seen carrying necessities — bags of food, toilet paper, and mattresses — through muddied streets. Some drove in cars with smashed windshields past houses without roofs. A pickup truck with no windshield carried 15 people outside of Acapulco. Parents walked past vehicles struggling to move through mud while shielding their children from the sun with umbrellas. People drenched in sweat walking on the roads held bags of bottled water.
Miguel Angel Vorantes, 58, a taxi driver, said the streets leading up to his home on a hillside in Acapulco were completely blocked by mudslides.
With the help of another taxi driver, Vorantes was pushing his taxi toward Acapulco. Gas and other basic goods were scarce, he said, because of looting following the hurricane.
“We have no gas, no water, no food,” he said. “Everything has been looted; there’s nothing to take anymore.”
Some people carried boxes of beer and other alcohol out of an Oxxo convenience store just outside Acapulco on Thursday. Another group of men hoisted a safe. Some even took empty shelves.
More than 7,600 Mexican army and air force officials were deployed to Guerrero state, as well as more than 700 members of the National Guard, according to officials. Search and rescue teams were also sent to survey Acapulco and the surrounding mountainous region, which is susceptible to landslides.
López Obrador said the federal government would also begin delivering food to the area by air. The Mexican president said he had visited Acapulco on Wednesday evening, encountering a mudslide and a flooded river along the way. Photographs showed him walking in the mud as he visited a community, near Acapulco.
Zoé Robledo, director general of the Mexican Social Security Institute, said Wednesday that he had deployed an emergency team of nurses who had recently worked in Haiti.
“We are also preparing personnel teams for conservation issues: medicine supply, personnel strengthening, focusing on the patients,” Robledo said.
Otis rapidly intensified Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday, developing from a tropical storm with winds of 65 mph to a Category 5 storm with winds 100 mph faster in less than 24 hours. After walloping the coastline, the storm dissipated as it headed inland over southern Mexico.
Forecasters and Mexican authorities were shocked by the magnitude of the storm. Their models largely failed to predict that it would intensify so abruptly.