Acapulco - Peter and Isabel Crowley's account of Riding Out Hurricane Otis : Taken from Facebook

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Hurricane Otis made a direct hit on Acapulco, as a Category 5, with sustained winds of 165 mph and gusts of up to 205 mph. The location of our apartment, overlooking the ocean, on the southernmost tip of Acapulco Bay, meant that we were directly in the line of fire. Isabel Crowley and I had been monitoring the storm for some days, and during Tuesday, when we saw its explosive and unprecedented growth from a tropical storm, we began to make preparations.

 
The front of our apartment is all glass, and we taped that up, put towels at the base of those windows that we thought might leak, and raised all items that might be susceptible to water damage above floor level, including all electrical connections. The rear of our apartment backs on to a corridor that leads from the main entrance to our apartment block and due to the circulation of the storm, this is the side from which we expected to be most fiercely hit. We moved everything off our two verandas and put it inside. We prepared lots of coffee, snacks, and water and put them in the bathroom, which we thought might serve as a ‘safe room’.

 
Just after midnight, the power went out and we switched off the supply, lest it might return when there was flooding in the apartment. We retreated upstairs and when we returned, about forty minutes later, we found that the ground floor was flooded with over an inch of water, that was flowing in under the main entrance door to our apartment. Such was the force of the wind that, while Isabel leant up against the front door, I wedged a chair under the handle and hammered into the gap between the door and the doorframe, as wedges, five wooden doorstops that we had bought in Guatemala several years ago. Had that door collapsed, the apartment would have been trashed, as turned out to be the case for our immediate neighbour.

 
When we woke very early on Wednesday morning, we could not get out of the front door, because of the quantity of debris that had piled up there. Once we dug ourselves out, we found that the rest of the condominium had been totally wrecked. There was no electricity. no water, no telephone or internet and one of the hardest parts of the whole experience was that we would not let friends and family know that we were OK. On Thursday we were able make our way to the Escenica, the road that follows the coast above our condominium. Thanks to an official from the Seguridad Civil, we were able to make a radio call to a friend and get a message to Michael, to say that we were OK. Michael was then able to call around, as was Vanessa.

 
Acapulco is destroyed, and its population is desperate. There has been widespread looting, and the authorities are floundering There is no security, no electricity, no food, no telephone service, no fuel, and no source of income for those who were so totally dependent on a tourism industry, which will not begin to recover for at the very least for six months. We have come to Puebla, with our heavily damaged car and are trying to decide what to do next. I have not posted any photos, because it is impossible to convey the utter devastation that has occurred in Acapulco.

Peter