Hotels and homes destroyed, roads collapsed and thousands of people isolated. This is how Acapulco, in the State of Guerrero, looked after the hurricane Otis, the worst storm in the last 30 years in the Pacific that reaches Mexican territory. The cyclone, which in 12 hours has gone from being a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane, the highest possible classification, has left the tourist destination like a war zone with fallen trees, debris, torn off roofs and buildings without walls. Neither the National Meteorological Service (SMN) nor local and federal authorities have been able to predict the intensity of the phenomenon. Neither do scientists. The speed with which the hurricane has intensified has been unusual and has forced the Mexican authorities to issue an evacuation alert for the area just a few hours before it Otis would hit the ground.
The SMN warned at 12:00 this Tuesday that the hurricane would reach Acapulco at six in the afternoon the next day. However, the storm has moved ahead and devastated the coastal city at 00:25 this Wednesday. The winds of more than 270 kilometers per hour that impacted the town and the State of Guerrero, one of the poorest in the country, have taken away everything in their path. More than 500,000 people were left without electricity, internet and telephone at dawn and so far only part of the service has been restored. The drop in communications has complicated access to the affected areas and official data on the number of victims and damage counts is still unknown, although it is anticipated that the losses will be in the millions.
The unusual strength of the hurricane has drawn the attention of the scientific community that relates the devastating power of Otis with the El Niño season, a phenomenon that is associated with changes in the atmosphere and the fluctuation of water temperature in the Pacific from time to time. “There is a hypothesis that it could be related to the rise in ocean temperature, it does not mean that there are more hurricanes, but it does mean that when there is one, the cyclone accelerates its formation by taking more energy under these conditions,” explains Claudia Rojas, from the Department of Process and Hydraulic Engineering, of the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM).
There are those who suggest that there is a relationship between climate change and the strength of hurricanes, although the scientific community continues to investigate this. “El Niño is causing these cyclones to reach high categories. However, it is difficult to attribute responsibility for the hurricane to climate change. Otis”says Christian Domínguez, researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). “What is known on a global scale is that with climate change there will be fewer hurricanes in the Pacific, but they will be more intense,” she adds. “With the information we currently have, it is not so clear that the intensity has to do with climate change because there are not so many historical records, although we do not rule it out,” the researcher points out.
After touching land, Otis It has been downgraded to a tropical storm and has left heavy rainfall in several states in central and southern Mexico, however, the threat has not yet passed. “The risk not only has to do with the strength of the winds. There are more dangers that such a phenomenon can entail, such as landslides and flooding of rivers and streams,” says Domínguez. In Acapulco about 20,000 people live in areas susceptible to flooding or landslides. The hurricane season in the Pacific begins around May 15 and ends around November 30, Guerrero could still experience the consequences of other cyclones, analyzes Rojas. “Research work has shown that after a prolonged drought, very intense rain events occur, as is the case of tropical cyclones that can reach these categories,” she comments.
Otis It is not the first hurricane in recent times to progress so rapidly. In 2015 the tropical storm Patricia It escalated to a Category 5 hurricane in 10 hours. The difference with the current phenomenon was that it did so out to sea, and the authorities of the States of Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit were able to evacuate 50,000 people before it made landfall. The storm, classified by the SMN as “extremely dangerous” and by the media as the “largest in history,” quickly lost strength in Mexican territory thanks to the mountain system of the Sierra Madre Occidental, which eroded the outer ring of the cyclone and prevented damage and devastation. Guerrero, in this case, has not had the same luck.
The Acapulco International Airport, which receives millions of tourists every year, has been completely flooded and has suffered serious damage to its structure. The damage has forced all flights to be suspended and the main roads are closed, preventing communications with Mexico City, four hours away by highway. The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has ordered his Security Cabinet to travel to the area, but upon seeing the seriousness of the situation, he has decided to go supervise the rescue tasks himself. The Army has deployed the DN III-E emergency plan and 37 shelters have been set up throughout the State for the victims, who hope that calm will arrive as quickly as possible. Otis He has done it in Guerrero.
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