By Jorge Cirett

The Hotel provided food, drinking water and water for the WC, and we were let free to gather what we could from the hotel infrastructure to settle in for the day and the next night. As on the first part we want to thank Hotel princess, the management of their organization and specially to the staff, which stood by us when they probably had family businesses to attend under the emergency. To them our greatest appreciation.

There was really no chance to sleep the rest of the night, and as soon as the day broke several of us began to wander by the hotel premises to assess the situation we were dealing with. The hotel was in our opinion almost completely destroyed, with only the basic structure of the buildings, steel and concrete, complete. All facades, scaffolding, ceilings and glass was overwhelmingly gone, as were four of the seven restaurants in the premises. Palm trees were stripped of most leaves, leaned, broken or found uprooted in unlikely places, the Lobby was razed, full of debris, and parked cars in front completely torn to pieces.

By the stories we heard, people took refuge on bathrooms and closets, to come out and find their room furniture and belongings gone.

There were some minor injuries at the hotel, although really not according to the destruction around. News came slowly, as people wandering between hotels came and go. We did not hear of any fatality in our time there. Nor was any, not a single person from the government, seen at the hotel during the 25th of October. It was until the 26th that we first heard an army/marine helicopter passing by.

As the day lapsed, we realized how lucky we were, that many hotels were understaffed and no power, food or water was available.