Hotels and houses destroyed, roads collapsed and thousands of people isolated. This is how Acapulco remained in the state of Guerrero after Hurricane Otis, the worst storm in the last 30 years in the Pacific, which reached Mexican territory. The cyclone, which grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane, the highest possible classification, in 12 hours, has left the tourist destination looking like a war zone with downed trees, debris, ripped off roofs and buildings without walls. Neither the National Meteorological Service (SMN) nor local and federal authorities could predict the intensity of the phenomenon. Neither do scientists. The speed at which the hurricane strengthened was unusual, forcing Mexican authorities to issue an evacuation warning for the area just hours before Otis made landfall.
The SMN warned this Tuesday at 12:00 that the hurricane would reach Acapulco at six in the afternoon the next day. However, the storm has progressed further and devastated the coastal town at 12:25 a.m. this Wednesday. The winds of more than 270 kilometers per hour that swept through the city and the state of Guerrero, one of the poorest in the country, took away everything in their path. More than 500,000 people were without power, internet and telephone at dawn and so far only part of the service has been restored. The decline in communications has made access to affected areas difficult and official data on the number of victims and damage figures are not yet known, although losses are expected to be in the millions.
The unusual strength of the hurricane has attracted the attention of the scientific community, which links the devastating power of Otis to the El Niño season, a phenomenon associated with changes in the atmosphere and the fluctuations in water temperature in the Pacific Ocean from time to time connected is time. Time. “There is a hypothesis that it could be related to the rise in sea temperature. This does not mean that there are more hurricanes, but it does mean that if there is one, the cyclone accelerates its formation by consuming more energy under these conditions,” explains Claudia Rojas from the Department of Process and Hydraulic Engineering the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM).
There are voices that suggest that there is a connection between climate change and the strength of hurricanes, although the scientific community continues to study this. “El Niño causes these hurricanes to reach high categories. However, it is difficult to attribute responsibility for Hurricane Otis to climate change,” says Christian Domínguez, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). “At the global level, it is known that with climate change there will be fewer hurricanes in the Pacific, but they will be more severe,” he adds. “With the information we have at the moment, it is not so clear that the intensity is related to climate change because there are not that many historical records, although we do not rule it out,” emphasizes the researcher.
After making landfall, Otis was downgraded to a tropical storm and has left heavy rains in several states in central and southern Mexico, but the threat is not yet over. “The risk doesn’t just depend on the strength of the wind. There are other dangers that such a phenomenon can bring, such as landslides and flooding of rivers and streams,” says Domínguez. In Acapulco, about 20,000 people live in areas prone to flooding or landslides. The Pacific hurricane season begins around May 15th and ends around November 30th. Guerrero could still feel the consequences of other hurricanes, analyzes Rojas. “Research has shown that after a prolonged drought, very intense rainfall events occur, as is the case with tropical cyclones, which can reach these categories,” he comments.
The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) reported that 58 high-voltage power plants collapsed in the state of Guerrero.Federal Electricity Commission (EFE)
Otis is not the first recent hurricane to move so quickly. In 2015, Tropical Storm Patricia escalated into a Category 5 hurricane within 10 hours. The difference with the current phenomenon was that it took place at sea and authorities in the states of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit were able to rescue 50,000 people evacuate before it made landfall. The storm, which was classified as “extremely dangerous” by the SMN and “the largest in history” by the media, quickly lost strength in Mexican territory due to the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain system, which eroded the outer ring of the cyclone and caused damage and devastation prevented. Guerrero wasn’t as lucky in this case.
The Acapulco International Airport, which receives millions of tourists every year, was completely flooded and suffered severe damage to its structure. The damage has caused all flights to be grounded and major roads closed, making it impossible to communicate with Mexico City, four hours away by highway. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered his security cabinet to travel to the area, but realizing the seriousness of the situation, he decided to oversee the rescue work himself. The Army has implemented the DN III-E emergency plan and 37 emergency shelters have been set up across the state for victims hoping that calm will return as quickly as Otis did in Guerrero.
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