This is from a non-SB member, but one of our local diving community. With his permission, I have posted this here....
Hi folks,
My last post from Cozumel indicated I had been beached after three days of beautiful diving because of a little storm that was cooking down around Honduras. Well, that little storm turned out to be Wilma, the worst storm to ever hit the island. I could write volumes on what happened over the last week, but this message will be as short as possible to give you a flavor of what happened, and some lessons learned. The story will be in a chronological order, and I will try to send some pictures once I find a web site I can use. If you just want the really short version, Cozumel and Cancun are disaster areas, and will not recover for awhile. I'm sending this to my distribution lists as well as a couple of others, so you might get this a couple of times if you are on other lists. Sorry for the redundancy, but Cozumel is one of our most popular dive locations and the word needs to get out.
Before the storm:
We arrived in Cozumel on Saturday 10/15/05, and went to the Fiesta Americana Hotel and Dive Resort on the south-west side of the island. I did a weather search before leaving the Sates, and no obvious dangers were evident. We dove Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, but on Wednesday when we showed up to dive we were told there was a "little storm" coming toward the island, and that there would be no diving because the harbor master closed the port. The weather and water conditions were still gorgeous, and they said to check back the next couple of days to see if we could dive. So, we went to town to do some shopping, eating and partying, and I sent my previous dive report from an internet cafe.
When we arrived back at the hotel there was a notice of a general meeting later that afternoon concerning the storm, and we discovered that Wilma was a Category 5 hurricane headed straight for us. Oh ****!!!! I called our air carrier, American Airlines, but they had no available seats, were not planning on sending additional planes, and even if they could find us a seat they would charge an additional $200.00 for making the change. They justified the extra charge because the airport was still "open", and an evacuation was not mandatory. Boy, that is what I call great customer service. Anyway, only about 100 guests remained at the hotel, and we were instructed to pack all of our stuff, leave it in our rooms, and meet in the main dinning room where we would spend the duration of the storm. The hotel had nailed sheets of plywood over the windows, placed lounge chair cushions with pillows and blankets on the floors, had food and water available, and claimed to have an emergency generator if needed. That evening we got "locked down" for the duration, and expected the storm to come through the next morning and be over about noon. Oops, it didn't happen that way.
The storm:
Like many storms Wilma came in with a whimper. She had been downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane, and we were already planning our continued diving. Wilma was moving very slowly and didn't arrive as expected. But when the heavy winds finally arrived they were impressive. We couldn't see outside, but the sound of the wind and rain was like a continuous train whistle, and we thought the windows were about to collapse any minute. During the worst part of the storm it was obvious that the storm preparations were inadequate, and we had to improvise on the inside to prevent the room from coming down on us. We took furniture apart to nail the pieces into the walls as reinforcements for the shutters, stacked credenzas and other furniture against one doorway to the outside as a barricade to keep it from collapsing, and took down thick wooden curtain rods to brace the furniture. That still wasn't adequate and we had to have shifts of 4 to 5 men constantly push against the barricade to keep the storm at bay. The women and children were relocated to a laundry room downstairs where they would be safer, but we were concerned about rising water trapping them in that location and had to keep a watchful eye out. The power failed some time during the storm, and the emergency generator also failed. Thank God we were a bunch of divers, because most of us had a couple of dive lights and fresh batteries. Well, that is how it was for the next two days. The winds were 150 MPH plus, we slept when we could, ate and drank water, took turns manning the barricades and mopping/bailing up the water that was coming in faster than we could control it. Finally, on Saturday the winds slowed down to less than 100 MPH, and we began to expect the end.
The aftermath:
On Sunday, following 3 days of lock down, we were allowed to return to our rooms. It was still a bit windy to go outside, there was no power or running water, but we were all glad to get out of that dinning room and off the floor. My back will never be the same. The hotel was messed up, and most of the rooms were a bit flooded, but OK. Those with unusable rooms were relocated, and we all pitched in to get things back in order. Our room was on the seventh floor and had a couple of inches of water on the floor, but a squeegee and towels got most of that taken care of. The room next door was demolished, and the corridors were filled with debris. We spent most of the day trying to clean and pick up debris, and it helped to keep busy. We had no communications with the outside world, had no idea where Wilma went, what the island conditions were, or what we needed to do to get home. We stayed up that night playing Hearts by candlelight with our neighbors, and went to bed praying the worst was over.
Monday morning blessed us with one of those beautiful Caribbean mornings, and we all got out to take a good look around. A survey of the surrounding area revealed widespread destruction, and we felt fortunate to have survived the ordeal. Hurricanes usually come in, do their damage, and leave within a day. Wilma was stubborn and pounded us for three days with two being severe. We found the road to town heavily damaged (gone in places), with trees and other debris blocking it. Local and guest men, women, and older children pitched in with chainsaws, axes, machetes, shovels, rakes and bare hands to clear and repair about two miles of road, and this allowed some people to come in with news and supplies. The supplies were good, but the news was bad. There was wide spread destruction on the island, all the piers except one damaged ferry pier were gone, the airport was closed indefinitely, and the hotel wanted us to leave. They wouldn't have provisions or services for us, and they feared bandits and looters coming in the night. We had to make a decision to stay or leave, and we decided to take our chances on the road. Maybe we could catch a ferry out to the mainland.
The trip across the Yucatan:
We were told that we could only take one suitcase each on the ferry, so we consolidated everything we could in our two dive bags, and left two suitcases with most of our clothes. Our clothes were classified as "soaking wet, wet, sort of wet, and somewhat dry", so it was pretty easy to discard them. We said our goodbyes, wished others good luck, exchanged phone numbers, and started on our way to town. Our travel service said they were going to send a van for us, but we walked all the way to the end of the cleared road without encountering them. We were lucky to find a kind cab driver who was out cruising, and he took us to the ferry pier. On the way we couldn't believe the destruction. Trees uprooted and/or denuded, power poles down, buildings demolished, windows gone, debris and flooding everywhere. It looked as though the island had been carpet bombed. We waited in line for a long time to get on the ferry, but finally made it through the Mexican army security check, and onto the 4:30 PM ferry to Play del Carmen. We almost couldn't get through the security check because the screeners wanted to see receipts for all our possessions, and wanted to specifically know what I was doing with dive gear. Hello, this was Cozumel after all, and I couldn't understand their logic. I think they just wanted a bribe or my gear. Luckily a very nice man, apparently from the island's tourist bureau, explained that divers come to the island with their gear, and usually don't have receipts. Oh well, on with the story.
We arrived in Playa del Carmen about an hour later, and found little storm damage except for along the shore. We decided to try to get to Merida which is across the Yucatan, and was said to have an open international airport. We located the bus station, bought our tickets for the 8:00 PM bus, and found a cafe to get some food. Playa del Carmen was business as normal except for half the town experiencing a power outage, but the reports we heard about Cancun were real bad. Widespread destruction. We returned to the bus station about 7:00 PM, but our bus didn't get there until almost 10:00 PM. After about five hours traveling through the Yucatan we arrived to Merida, and took a taxi to the airport.
continued....
Hi folks,
My last post from Cozumel indicated I had been beached after three days of beautiful diving because of a little storm that was cooking down around Honduras. Well, that little storm turned out to be Wilma, the worst storm to ever hit the island. I could write volumes on what happened over the last week, but this message will be as short as possible to give you a flavor of what happened, and some lessons learned. The story will be in a chronological order, and I will try to send some pictures once I find a web site I can use. If you just want the really short version, Cozumel and Cancun are disaster areas, and will not recover for awhile. I'm sending this to my distribution lists as well as a couple of others, so you might get this a couple of times if you are on other lists. Sorry for the redundancy, but Cozumel is one of our most popular dive locations and the word needs to get out.
Before the storm:
We arrived in Cozumel on Saturday 10/15/05, and went to the Fiesta Americana Hotel and Dive Resort on the south-west side of the island. I did a weather search before leaving the Sates, and no obvious dangers were evident. We dove Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, but on Wednesday when we showed up to dive we were told there was a "little storm" coming toward the island, and that there would be no diving because the harbor master closed the port. The weather and water conditions were still gorgeous, and they said to check back the next couple of days to see if we could dive. So, we went to town to do some shopping, eating and partying, and I sent my previous dive report from an internet cafe.
When we arrived back at the hotel there was a notice of a general meeting later that afternoon concerning the storm, and we discovered that Wilma was a Category 5 hurricane headed straight for us. Oh ****!!!! I called our air carrier, American Airlines, but they had no available seats, were not planning on sending additional planes, and even if they could find us a seat they would charge an additional $200.00 for making the change. They justified the extra charge because the airport was still "open", and an evacuation was not mandatory. Boy, that is what I call great customer service. Anyway, only about 100 guests remained at the hotel, and we were instructed to pack all of our stuff, leave it in our rooms, and meet in the main dinning room where we would spend the duration of the storm. The hotel had nailed sheets of plywood over the windows, placed lounge chair cushions with pillows and blankets on the floors, had food and water available, and claimed to have an emergency generator if needed. That evening we got "locked down" for the duration, and expected the storm to come through the next morning and be over about noon. Oops, it didn't happen that way.
The storm:
Like many storms Wilma came in with a whimper. She had been downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane, and we were already planning our continued diving. Wilma was moving very slowly and didn't arrive as expected. But when the heavy winds finally arrived they were impressive. We couldn't see outside, but the sound of the wind and rain was like a continuous train whistle, and we thought the windows were about to collapse any minute. During the worst part of the storm it was obvious that the storm preparations were inadequate, and we had to improvise on the inside to prevent the room from coming down on us. We took furniture apart to nail the pieces into the walls as reinforcements for the shutters, stacked credenzas and other furniture against one doorway to the outside as a barricade to keep it from collapsing, and took down thick wooden curtain rods to brace the furniture. That still wasn't adequate and we had to have shifts of 4 to 5 men constantly push against the barricade to keep the storm at bay. The women and children were relocated to a laundry room downstairs where they would be safer, but we were concerned about rising water trapping them in that location and had to keep a watchful eye out. The power failed some time during the storm, and the emergency generator also failed. Thank God we were a bunch of divers, because most of us had a couple of dive lights and fresh batteries. Well, that is how it was for the next two days. The winds were 150 MPH plus, we slept when we could, ate and drank water, took turns manning the barricades and mopping/bailing up the water that was coming in faster than we could control it. Finally, on Saturday the winds slowed down to less than 100 MPH, and we began to expect the end.
The aftermath:
On Sunday, following 3 days of lock down, we were allowed to return to our rooms. It was still a bit windy to go outside, there was no power or running water, but we were all glad to get out of that dinning room and off the floor. My back will never be the same. The hotel was messed up, and most of the rooms were a bit flooded, but OK. Those with unusable rooms were relocated, and we all pitched in to get things back in order. Our room was on the seventh floor and had a couple of inches of water on the floor, but a squeegee and towels got most of that taken care of. The room next door was demolished, and the corridors were filled with debris. We spent most of the day trying to clean and pick up debris, and it helped to keep busy. We had no communications with the outside world, had no idea where Wilma went, what the island conditions were, or what we needed to do to get home. We stayed up that night playing Hearts by candlelight with our neighbors, and went to bed praying the worst was over.
Monday morning blessed us with one of those beautiful Caribbean mornings, and we all got out to take a good look around. A survey of the surrounding area revealed widespread destruction, and we felt fortunate to have survived the ordeal. Hurricanes usually come in, do their damage, and leave within a day. Wilma was stubborn and pounded us for three days with two being severe. We found the road to town heavily damaged (gone in places), with trees and other debris blocking it. Local and guest men, women, and older children pitched in with chainsaws, axes, machetes, shovels, rakes and bare hands to clear and repair about two miles of road, and this allowed some people to come in with news and supplies. The supplies were good, but the news was bad. There was wide spread destruction on the island, all the piers except one damaged ferry pier were gone, the airport was closed indefinitely, and the hotel wanted us to leave. They wouldn't have provisions or services for us, and they feared bandits and looters coming in the night. We had to make a decision to stay or leave, and we decided to take our chances on the road. Maybe we could catch a ferry out to the mainland.
The trip across the Yucatan:
We were told that we could only take one suitcase each on the ferry, so we consolidated everything we could in our two dive bags, and left two suitcases with most of our clothes. Our clothes were classified as "soaking wet, wet, sort of wet, and somewhat dry", so it was pretty easy to discard them. We said our goodbyes, wished others good luck, exchanged phone numbers, and started on our way to town. Our travel service said they were going to send a van for us, but we walked all the way to the end of the cleared road without encountering them. We were lucky to find a kind cab driver who was out cruising, and he took us to the ferry pier. On the way we couldn't believe the destruction. Trees uprooted and/or denuded, power poles down, buildings demolished, windows gone, debris and flooding everywhere. It looked as though the island had been carpet bombed. We waited in line for a long time to get on the ferry, but finally made it through the Mexican army security check, and onto the 4:30 PM ferry to Play del Carmen. We almost couldn't get through the security check because the screeners wanted to see receipts for all our possessions, and wanted to specifically know what I was doing with dive gear. Hello, this was Cozumel after all, and I couldn't understand their logic. I think they just wanted a bribe or my gear. Luckily a very nice man, apparently from the island's tourist bureau, explained that divers come to the island with their gear, and usually don't have receipts. Oh well, on with the story.
We arrived in Playa del Carmen about an hour later, and found little storm damage except for along the shore. We decided to try to get to Merida which is across the Yucatan, and was said to have an open international airport. We located the bus station, bought our tickets for the 8:00 PM bus, and found a cafe to get some food. Playa del Carmen was business as normal except for half the town experiencing a power outage, but the reports we heard about Cancun were real bad. Widespread destruction. We returned to the bus station about 7:00 PM, but our bus didn't get there until almost 10:00 PM. After about five hours traveling through the Yucatan we arrived to Merida, and took a taxi to the airport.
continued....
