Surviving Wilma On Coz

[Fish_Whisperer]

As I was packing my dive gear for a long-planned trip to Cozumel, Mexico, a friend of mine asked if I was looking forward to the trip. I replied that I was looking forward to it, but not as much as I thought I should be. Little did I know what I was in for...

The next morning, (Saturday the 15th) all five of us (my dive team) boarded the plane for Cozumel. As the plane descended, I was charmed by the deep azure blue of the ocean and the lush emerald green of the tropical island.

After checking into the Casa Del Mar, we assembled our dive gear and met up at the dive shop. We went out for a leisurely shore dive, and then went back to the outdoor restaurant/bar for dinner and drinks. Warm breezes wafted through, as we sat beneath the thatched roof and gazed out at the sea.

The next morning, (Sunday the 16th) after a light breakfast, we lugged our dive gear to the boat and our first dive was a coral wall dive. The current carried us along, and we saw an amazing abundance of marine life and corals. Our next dive took us to a calm coral garden, where there was only the slightest bit of current. We played around with lobsters, saw countless fish, and then we surfaced, washed our gear, showered, and met up for lunch at the restaurant again. That afternoon, I did some souvenir shopping. That night, we went out to "Senor Frog's," and had a great time.

The next morning, (Monday the 17th) we went on another coral wall dive, and again, went through a calm coral garden... It was so beautiful, and we saw three nurse sharks -- one of them looked to be over ten feet long! (But I may have just been goggle-eyed at seeing a big shark!) LOL

That afternoon, we did a dive of C53, an old navy vessel that had been sunken as an artificial reef, making our way through the hatches and various rooms of the ship. We emerged topside, and found that a new coral garden was beginning to bloom on the decks... It was really beautiful. (And a little eerie...)

Tuesday was much the same as the previous two days: We dove a reef wall, and then meandered through a coral garden. I saw a huge barracuda, but he remained off to one side, just observing us.

That afternoon, I did some more souvenir shopping. We had originally decided to do a night dive that night, but instead, the harbor, marina, and dive shop closed, and everywhere we looked, people were nailing up plywood over the windows and talking about hurricane Wilma, which was now slated to hit Cancun and the Yucatan Peninsula. Talking with the locals, no one seemed terribly concerned, and said that they expected it to be very minor. I was reassurred. If the locals weren't worried, than neither was I, although I was disappointed that we wouldn't be able to dive.

That afternoon, the wind began to pick up, and the waves began to increase in size. The hotel called a meeting of all the guests, and outlined the emergency procedures that we would be undergoing, if/when things got bad. Still, it didn't seem like Wilma was going to be much more than a tropical storm for Cozumel, and that night, we met again at the restaurant for drinks and dinner.

When we walked back to the hotel, we were told to meet in the lobby at 9 p.m. The wind and waves had picked up considerably.

At the meeting, we were told to bring our passports and other necessities to the lobby at 10:30. Already, lounge chairs had been taken from around the pool and set up in the basement of the Casa Del Mar -- A room that was already boarded up, with a ceiling that was only 7' high. Even under the flourescents, it looked very small and I felt a little claustrophobic. The wind had picked up in earnest, and we could hear the waves pounding and smashing harder and harder.

(cont.)

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

When we assembled at 10:30, there were twenty guests, counting the five of us. The doors had been boarded up and sealed, and we began to hear what a hurricane sounded like. Little did we know that we were in for far more... All of us set about making ourselves comfortable. I found a couch to curl up on, and I read a book to help pass the time. Around midnight, the power was knocked out, and candles were lit. By this time, the storm sounded like a squadron of B-52's, a dozen freight trains, and a sound similar to the bowels of Hell opening to emit the voices of a thousand anguished souls. All of the plywood over the windows began to shake, and we could hear the sounds of shattering glass, huge booming sounds as doors were blown off of their hinges, and we could feel the concussion of the waves hammering the sea wall.

As the night wore on, the staff rotated constantly, checking doors and windows, making sure we were safe. Every few hours, the moments were punctuated by new boards and supports being hammered into place. All in all, it was like being buried alive. The toilets no longer flushed and that lovely smell filled the shelter. The rain began to seep through the ceiling of the lobby and the shelter. As the water rose, it seemed like the ceiling got lower and lower. With barely any oxygen and being in complete darkness, we all slept and slept and slept. The staff put out three meals a day for us, and we ate, talked quietly, rested, played chess, read books, or slept. Mostly, we slept. Each time I lay down to sleep, I thought, "When I wake up, this will all be over with." We spent a total of 43 hours in the shelter. All together, Wilma raged overhead for sixty hours straight.

As the storm began to abate a little, Normando the general manager, opened one of the doors to go into an interior courtyard. I stopped him and asked if we could go out for five minutes to get some air. He said that would be okay, and with that, EVERYONE went outside. That first breath of fresh air; that first moment of daylight!! It seemed more precious and welcome than anything in the whole world. At that point, some people were allowed to go to their rooms and gather their belongings. Some of the rooms were utterly destroyed and filled with water and broken glass. We snuck up to the third floor when none of the staff were looking, and caught our first glimpse of Wilma's handiwork: Nothing prepared us for the level of utter devastation that met our eyes. The restaurant/bar was destroyed, the roof collapsed and timbers lying helter skelter. Trees had been tossed about like jackstraws, stripped and shattered, and where the highway had once been, most of it was completely GONE, with huge slabs of asphalt, and concrete with rebar sticking out of it, shingles, tiles, boards, and bricks piled up and strewn everywhere. There was NOTHING that wasn't completely destroyed, and indeed, few structures remained.

Everyone then recovered their gear and luggage from their rooms, and most of us were moved to new rooms that hadn't been harmed by the hurricane. The wind was still blasting overhead, and the rainfall was a torrential downpour. We collected water that had been squeegee'd from the floors and used it to flush the toilets. (Thank GOD!!) The staff got the generators fired up, and we had electricity. That night, we got to actually sleep in beds! The water was turned back on, and we had cold water enough for showers, for the sinks to run, and to flush the toilets. How grateful we all were!

The next day, after breakfast, we began to venture outside. Nothing but utter destruction, everywhere we looked. There had been a highway overpass from the hotel's pool deck, down to the dive shop. The descending set of concrete stairs on the dive shop side, were missing. Looters and scavengers were picking through the rubble of offices and shops.

That afternoon, on the deck where the pool was, someone managed to get a faint cellphone signal, and each of us took turns calling home and saying, "Hi! I'm alive, I'm okay, but don't know when I'll be able to make it home...."

Later that day, Martial Law was declared, alcohol sales prohibited, a curfew established, and military vehicles began patrolling the streets. I pulled on jeans and boots and went down to the dive shop to help them clear it out. The roof was gone, the air compressor for filling dive tanks had been bashed onto its back and stuffed down into a deep hole filled with slabs of broken concrete and huge rocks that the surge had deposited. There was a locker room for dive gear, but it too was filled with rocks, sand, and huge chunks of concrete, right up to the level where the ceiling had been. I helped smash up the concrete and carry the rocks out, so that people could get to their lockers. It took seven of us all morning to clear that, and then, using a sturdy pole and ropes, several of us hoisted the air compressor out of the hole it was in, and got it propped up on a concrete wall, out of the way of everything so that we could begin cleaning and clearing out the building with sledgehammers, prybars, and shovels.

One of the souvenir shops that I'd shopped at, was gone. All that remained of it was the foundation. I came across the two ladies that owned it, who had been very sweet, and they were standing in the middle of the street, shaking their heads in disbelief and saying, "It's gone.... It's gone..." With tears in my eyes, I hugged them and said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." It really broke my heart...

The dead numbered 15, with 4 Americans among them.

My dive instructor had been a paramedic for twenty years, and he and I both volunteered to remain and help out with any body recovery or first aid that was required. More than that, the authorities wanted all of the touristas OFF of the island as soon as possible, so that repair and rebuilding could begin in earnest.

The airport was thoroughly trashed, and we heard the news of how bad things were in Cancun, as well. I was glad we had stayed where we were...

Throughout the seemingly endless hurricane, the staff was unfailingly cheerful and every single one of them did their very best to make sure we were comfortable and fed. Many of them had no idea whether their own families were okay, or if their own homes had survived the hurricane. At first opportunity, many of them walked home. Fortunately, each of them returned and reported that their homes had taken some minor damage, but that their families were okay.

The rest of the island had no phones, no electricity, no running water, and supplies at the local markets were running low. All flights out of the airport had been suspended, except for cargo planes bringing in supplies, and we'd heard that the airport itself was chest-deep underwater.

On Thursday, all of us were unceremoniously loaded into a van and taken to the airport, where it was rumored that Continental Airlines was taking any and all American passengers to Houston, Texas. The airport had been cleaned up, all the water pumped out, and some of the gift shops were even open for business. A woman in our dive group bought a t-shirt, and it was still damp... As we boarded the plane, and we were welcomed by the flight attendant, a huge cheer went up from all of us.

We arrived in Houston that night, dirty, tired, damp, and rumpled, but none the worse for wear. We managed to get the last seats available on a flight to Nashville, and landed at Nashville at 11:30 p.m.

We arrived home around 1:30 a.m., and I took Friday off. How good it was to sleep in my own bed!! I spent Friday rinsing and washing my stinky dive gear and doing laundry.

So, there's the account of the entire harrowing incident. LOL

-Frank

 

[Diesel298]

well wrighten
glad you made it out unscaved

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Thanks... It was the experience of a lifetime, for sure.

 

[JRRKAR]

It is hard to read your story since we stayed at Casa Del Mar this past May. Looking at the pictures of the area and seeing the bridge, docks, etc. gone makes me appreciate what we got to see and enjoy. We did many dives that week off the house reef both in the afternoon and night, and I guess now none of that reef exists.

Glad to hear you made it out alright.

Jeff

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

The Casa del Mar took significantly less damage than anything else surrounding it. The dive shop was wrecked, the pier for boarding the boats, utterly gone. The international piers for the cruise ships took major damage: One of them was completely gone. The other had a huge section missing right out of the middle.

Here's a photo of some of the damage around the Casa del Mar: (Note the damage to the hotel in the upper right, and the pieces of the road in the lower left)

 

[TheDivingBear]

WoW! Glad to hear you and your group were okay. We cruised into Coz (on Carnival) in September and did our first ocean dive on Paradise Reef (I so wanna go back). We were shocked to see all the pics that came out of it. I knew the pier took damage, but had not heard that one was completely gone. Wow!

Peace,

Bear

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Here's the pic of what remains of the piers, Bear. The far one is gone, and you can see the damage sustained by the remaining one: