Andrea Fernández is eight months pregnant and desperate to reach her husband to tell him she is safe after Hurricane Otis devastated Acapulco, isolating the famous seaside resort on Mexico’s western Pacific coast.
“There is no network. It’s been three days since I was able to reach him,” Andrea sighs. With about 20 other people, she raises her phone to the sky or looks for all possible angles, hoping to get some range.
“I’m desperate,” she said through tears, unable to call her husband, who is serving a prison sentence elsewhere in Mexico.
Power and connections have been partially interrupted since Hurricane Otis passed through shortly after midnight on Wednesday, officially claiming 27 lives in Acapulco, home to around 780,000 residents.
The signal comes and goes irregularly. Every call is a lottery. “There is no way out here!” I will call you back as soon as I can. We have lost everything. It’s terrible,” says a woman, speaking at full speed after finally being able to reach someone.
Those who weren’t so lucky sit on the floor before trying again and monitor their phone’s battery level.
From the bridge over which Andrea wants to contact her husband, the young woman can see the famous Princess Hotel and a completely destroyed golf course.
On the other hand, dozens of people continue to serve themselves in a supermarket where food and household appliances are being looted under the impassive gaze of the military.
Andrea says one of her neighbors walked 100 kilometers to the nearby town of Chilpancingo and brought messages from several residents. However, this neighbor was unable to contact her own husband in his cell several hundred kilometers further north in the state of Jalisco.
The Acapulco-Chilpancingo-Mexico Highway of the Sun is passable again. An airlift was set up to evacuate tourists.
– “Difficult and stressful” –
On the same bridge, Yesenia Peñaloza tries to call her sister, who lives in the neighboring state of Michoacán, to tell her that she and her parents are OK.
“I sent text messages, but who knows whether they arrived,” sighs the 21-year-old young woman.
“It’s difficult and stressful” knowing her sister may not have heard from her. “Some people have been lucky enough to find a network and connect with their loved ones.”
“We don’t know anything about my father since Tuesday evening,” said another woman who wished to remain anonymous.
Local television stations allowed Acapulco residents to broadcast live messages to let their loved ones know they were safe or to send photos of people who had not been found.
Operator Telcel said Thursday that it had restored “nearly 40% of its services in Acapulco,” outside of “areas without power or in areas where infrastructure has been damaged.”
– incapacity to work –
Communication within the city is even more difficult.
A tourist alerts journalists to a sick person who is unable to move and needs to be evacuated from a hurricane-damaged building.
The patient has not been able to contact his family, who also lives in the port of Acapulco.
Francisco Perez, 50, wants to talk to his mother, who also lives in Acapulco. He attacks the authorities, who, in his opinion, should have installed “portable antennas at strategic points.”
“What can we do?” he says angrily.
Telcel, owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, said it was offering unlimited calls, texts and messages to “its users affected by Hurricane Otis” until November 2nd.