The Category 5 storm slammed into Mexico’s Pacific coast early Wednesday, killing at least 27 people, with at least four still missing.
As a bright, hot sun filled Acapulco in the days following the furious arrival of Hurricane Otis, it revealed a city utterly transformed by destruction.
The Category 5 storm slammed into the Pacific coast early Wednesday, killing at least 27 people, with at least four still missing, according to Mexican officials.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, pledged unlimited resources and thousands of troops. But residents and tourists in the city of 1 million people say they’ve received scant help.
The surprisingly powerful hurricane left little time to prepare and heavy damage in its wake. That’s made it difficult to access the city, leaving Acapulco with challenges of surviving the aftermath and eventually rebuilding the once-glamorous Pacific getaway.Tourist areas wrecked
As much as 80% of the city’s hotels were damaged by the storm, Evelyn Salgado Pineda, governor of Guerrero state, which includes Acapulco, said on Thursday.
As NPR visits, it has found tourist areas devastated. Broken glass filled hotel lobbies. Avenue-lining palm trees were stripped clean or thrown across the road. Winds reaching 165 mph had ripped through beachfront high-rises, hollowing out rooms and leaving buildings skeletal.
Hotel guests said they didn’t know how they survived as the furious winds shattered glass and tossed furniture.
„We hid in the bathroom for hours,“ said Adelita Jiménez, 42, who was with her husband and two teenage children celebrating a family reunion in Acapulco. „We just held onto each other. We didn’t know if we would survive.“
Tourists went out in search of food, water and any information in the days after the storm. Most were stuck and unsure how to get out of the city.
Jiménez and her family waited at a shuttered gas station for hours, where rumor had it buses would be passing to take stranded tourists out of the city. National Guard troops directing traffic a few feet away had no information about the buses.
Speaking from Acapulco on Friday, Mexican Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said 150 buses have been deployed to take tourists and residents out of the disaster area and 120 more would be sent Friday.
He also said more than 13,000 troops were deployed in the city and working in „a coordinated manner“ with local and state officials to „resolve the situation.“
Limited commercial flights have resumed at the badly damaged international airport.
President López Obrador, in a Friday morning news conference, urged people in Acapulco not to take advantage of the situation, as people growing desperate for food, water and other provisions have resorted to looting.
