Tourists arrive in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, after being evicted from the port of Acapulco.Mónica González Islas
Marisol Rodríguez and Maximiliano Cortés crossed Acapulco this Thursday with their baby Lía in their arms. They walked more than seven kilometers to a bus station to get out of a destroyed city. Like them, there are thousands of people in an area that until two days ago was one of Mexico’s tourist gems. A mining congress with more than 5,000 participants and a sports meeting with 800 minors only began on Tuesday. Life went on until Otis hit and became a category five hurricane within hours. The federal government has so far confirmed only 27 dead and four missing, but vast areas remain cut off without help or support. A state of emergency has been in effect in Acapulco since early Wednesday morning.
Arriving in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state and about 130 kilometers from the center of the crisis, means tourists have to regain access to electricity, internet access, drinking water and grocery stores. “You can’t buy anything in Acapulco, even if you want to,” says Cortés. He and his family had only been in the coastal town for a few days when the ninth floor of the Emporio Hotel began to shake. Then the wind blew the windows out of the room at a speed of over 250 kilometers per hour. To protect themselves, they propped a mattress against the wall and hid in the bathroom as the pressure eased. From there they were only brought out by a knock on the door from the maintenance staff, who gathered all the guests in a convention hall that was also flooded.
Between the buildings of the coastal town of Miguel Alemán, one of the central points of a city that has thrived on tourism for decades, the horror story doesn’t change much. The 800 minors who attended the State, Sports and Cultural Meeting of Guerrero stayed at the Playa Suites Hotel. Luis Hernández and Alejandro Márquez were responsible for recording the content of the event, but instead they have drone images of a city where 80% of the hotels are affected. “It was like living through a two-hour earthquake,” summarize the young people from Mexico City, “you see how everything around you is exploding, the girls are screaming, the air is looking for an outlet and everything is pushing through the hallways, that flies away.” .
Maximiliano Cortéz, Marisol Rodríguez and Maximiliano Cortés with their daughter Lía in Chilpancingo to continue their way to Ciudad Juárez. Monica González Islas
The images arriving from Acapulco show a paradise of sea and beach transformed into a shell. But the danger lies deeper: the city has been without electricity since early Wednesday morning, which is leading to bottlenecks in the drinking water supply, there is also no telephone or internet connection and supplies are already running out. One chaos causes another. The looting of large chains such as Oxxo, Walmart and Soriana has begun. “The hotel warned us that it could no longer guarantee us water, food or safety,” said the Chávez family, who met in Acapulco from Guadalajara, Ciudad Juárez and Tucson, Arizona.
Now the family reunion takes place at the Chilpancingo terminal, with suitcases scattered around, looking for a way to continue their journey home. His hotel, the Mayan Palace, made it easy for all guests to leave Acapulco given the brutal landscape that lay before them. They were among the last in the building, but not in the city. The governor of Guerrero, Evelyn Salgado, said that between seven and nine o’clock this afternoon the 30 daily buses left to rid the city of its tourists.
Pily and Juan, who arrived in Acapulco on the same Tuesday as the hurricane, just hours earlier, took longer to leave than the mining convention they attended. The stone walls of his bayside hotel, Las Brisas, withstood Otis’ attack better than most. But the food was already running out. They left at 10 a.m. that Thursday in the car they had already rented and asked the National Guard for directions because there were no more signs or Google Maps. It took them seven hours to cover the just over 100 kilometer route to Chilpancingo.
“There are too many people trying to get out,” summarizes the Chávez family, describing the toppled light poles, fallen trees, fleeing cars with broken windows and abandoned vehicles on the road with no one able to get to those stranded. Anyone who leaves Acapulco leaves full. Taxi drivers say they charge 500 pesos per person, about $25, one way. Tourists leave without anyone knowing when they will return.
A family searches for buses after being evacuated from Acapulco due to the hurricane. Monica González Islas
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