Acapulco

Acapulco, AIMMGM Convention and Otis Hurricane, Final Part 6, Leaving Acapulco

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By Jorge Cirett

In the morning of the 26th, most people rose early, and by 6:00 hours there was a lot of chatter and movement. The AIMMGM was getting buses to transport convention attendees, and companies were bringing trucks and transport vehicles to take out its personnel and business acquaintances. Someone claiming to be part of the Ciudad de México government came and gave a weird speech where a lot of stuff was mingled. Nothing clear came out of his intervention.

The next video shows the spot that we arranged to spend the night, using diverse pieces of furniture from the hotel.

After patching two windows and the sunroof of Miguel’s car, and having breakfast provided by the hotel staff, we asked for directions and took out from the site. The look of the buildings, houses and businesses along the streets was bizarre, with semi-obstructed streets, fallen trees and light posts. We could see some people coming out from a strongly damaged convenience store carrying beer cans, but that was the only case of plunder observed.

If you have seen images from urban areas hit by a tornado, then you can imagine the scene set before our eyes, kilometer after kilometer, until we were out of town. The vegetation showed the signs of the force of the wind, either slumping to one side, fallen or neatly trimmed to the trunk or thickest branches. As we drove farther, the trim was on only on the part of the tree looking to the ocean and even further away, 30-50 km the vegetation was undamaged.

This recollection ends with a good bowl of green pozole at the Tecuan restaurant in Chilpancingo.

Acapulco, AIMMGM Convention and Otis Hurricane, Part 5, The Day After

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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.

Acapulco, AIMMGM Convention and Otis Hurricane, Part 4, Otis Waning

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By Jorge Cirett

At some point between 1:00 and 2:00 on October 25th the storm eased, the winds and rain were not as strong and you could see at least the shadows of the other buildings.

The corridor noises had subsided and I was able to open the door and take a look outside, where things looked far worse than I expected, with pieces of cardboard all over and metal stripes hanging from the ceiling.

Even if my room didn’t look nice, and Miguel and Lucy’s room was undamaged, we were about to discover that we were extremely lucky. As we went to the aisle, it was full of obstacles, a complete door with its frame, cardboard, metal frames and fittings, dirt….. and several rooms had no inner walls, we could see inside these.

By 2:00 am the wind wasn’t hurricane force any more, and I decided to go to bed. Not much later voices sounded on the corridor, and soon we learn’t hotel employees were gathering all guests to conduct us to a large hall to take shelter. They guided us through the debris filled corridor downstairs, and by 3:00 we were settled in, along the rest of the guests. There was a brief period with Wi-Fi that most used to send notes home, by 5:00 am it was also gone and wouldn’t come back for almost 24 hours.

Acapulco, AIMMGM Convention and Otis Hurricane, Part 3, Otis

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Between 23:00 and 1:00 it is difficult to recollect the timing and sequence of events, because there were plenty to pay attention to. What I can tell is that the strongest part of the storm lasted about half an hour, when the building was moving sideways as in a light earthquake. The wind was howling all thorough those two hours, but by 13:30 it was clear the worst part was over. Miguel and his wife were in the communicated room besides mine, and we exchanged thoughts and help in these moments. there was no way we could have interacted by going out to the corridor, where the howling winds and sharp bangs were continuously heard.

Water was entering the room by the space below the door, and running as a stream toward the floor-to-ceiling crystal doors to the balcony, some 10 m away. At some point a good portion of the cardboard ceiling of my room fell to the floor, while I was standing by a wall looking outside thorough the glass of the doors. These doors were combing by the center outwards by more than an inch under the stress of the wind, one of these slightly coming off the floor rail, but luckily held and none break. A pigeon came fleeing the winds to the balcony while I was outside filming, and took refuge at the base of the glass balcony, a lucky survivor.

I was irresponsible enough to take some videos from the balcony, but had enough sense to not try to open the front door in that period. My belongings I had stuffed on the bathroom, and the ceiling lights were on, although there was no power on any other part of the rooms. The hotel internet connection was down during this period, while the cell phone signal was still on, although it died at the end to not come back by the time we left Acapulco. We really were not aware of the extent of devastation outside our little bubble.

Acapulco, AIMMGM Convention and Otis Hurricane, Part 2, The Storm Arrives

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By Jorge Cirett

The wind and rain intensified slowly, and it was difficult to assess at what time hurricane force winds were reached by what we could see and hear from a ninth floor. My practical threshold is that hurricane force winds were reached when the sound of crystals shattering was heard from the corridor, and the banging of objects against the walls and floors was clear and sound. I took a peek outside the room and obtained the video from the corridor. Not catastrophic winds, but clearly with hurricane force, therefore I assume this period between 22:00 and 23:00 hours as the arrival of the hurricane.

Acapulco, AIMMGM Convention and Otis Hurricane, Part 1, Arrival

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By Jorge Cirett

As you might have noticed, this Gambusino Prospector page was left unattended for two days in a row, something that had never happened before. The reason being that both Miguel Heredia and I were left stranded and with very little communication means after Otis directly hit Acapulco as a category five hurricane.

Please note this is the experience of an outsider that was very lucky to be on one of the hotels that kept its staff working, had backup energy and enough food to feed a few hundred guests for several days, and later counted with the support of the AIMMGM for organizing the exit from Acapulco. Our greatest thanks and appreciation to Hotel Princess operators and even more to the staff that kept working under trying circumstances. Thanks also to the help and information provided by the AIMMGM, although the event also made evident the areas where the organization needs upgrading. Our first and only contact with the government while on the Hotel was a helicopter flying through the coast on the morning of October 26, more than 30 hours after the hurricane.

We were attending the AIMMGM convention, staying at the Princess Hotel, part of the Mundo Imperial chain. Here is a description of what it was like being on a city as it suffered under one of the strongest forces of nature.

Arrival

We arrived by road to the Princess hotel about 17:00, under a gray overcast sky and no wind.

By 18:00 we arrived at the Convention Center and went directly to the Exhibition Hall, skipping the Inauguration event, as we would need to move between the buildings to attend, and went directly to the Exhibition Hall. A friend of us had sent previously a warning on the strengthening of Otis, and the estimated path a bit off from Acapulco, so when we overheard a conversation where one of the organizers was recommending to leave early, we didn’t loose time and headed for the exit.

At approximately 21:30 we were on the queue for boarding the buses to the hotels, with about 70 persons in front of us, under a scatter of water droplets, not quite a rain, and a strong breeze. By 22:00 we were at the hotel, with strong winds and light rain.

I was an optimist (a naive one), as I had heard Otis would arrive at 4:00 am the next day, and I even set an alarm to wake me up before its arrival. By 23:00 it was clear that I was not to need any alarm to wake me up….. a category five hurricane needs no wake-up alarms. The following pictures and videos were taken between 22:00 and 23:00 hours, as the winds strengthened.