ACAPULCO, Mexico, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Hurricane Otis hit the Mexican resort of Acapulco on Wednesday. It was a rare Category 5 storm and one of the strongest ever to hit Mexico's Pacific coast. He destroyed hotels and shattered roofs and windows.
Videos posted on social media: Showrooms destroyed by the hurricane, cracks in ceilings and walls, broken windows and partially flooded cars as the southern state of Guerrero awoke from the chaos left by Otis; wake up.
Debris was scattered across hotel lobbies, patios, streets and balconies as the hurricane devastated the coast.
Photos posted on social media showed that the facades of some buildings in Acapulco had been partially demolished by Otis. Photos show that the airport was heavily flooded and destroyed.
No deaths were initially reported, but authorities stressed that electricity and telephone networks were lacking in much of the region, making it difficult to get a detailed picture of the damage. In 1
, President Andres Manuel López Obrador traveled to Acapulco to witness the destruction and was scheduled to arrive later on Wednesday. The army was mobilized to mitigate the effects of the hurricane.
Luisa Pena, a shocked guest at the Acapulco hotel, described hiding in a closet when she was caught in the eye of the storm. “I literally started praying,” she said in a TikTok video.“I was so panicked that I just asked for another chance,” he added, claiming his room had been “trash”; as Otis walked through the building.
Footage from a hospital posted on social media shows nurses evacuating patients from their rooms to protect them from Otis, which unexpectedly spilled out to sea and swept the coast with winds of 160 miles per hour.
Otis, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the region, made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane - the strongest level on the five-level Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale - before quickly weakening to a Category 4 storm. It moved inland, gained strength, weakened further, and transformed Otis into a tropical storm, which then dissipated over the southern mountains of Mexico.
Mexican authorities were shocked by the sudden force of Otis as it slammed into the Pacific coast almost exactly eight years after Hurricane Patricia, a storm with winds of 200 miles per hour. As of Wednesday afternoon,
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Otis had spread, albeit in the United StatesThe National Hurricane Center warned of heavy rains in southwest and south-central Mexico starting Thursday and a continued threat of flooding and landslides.
Authorities had previously reported that Otis could bring up to 20 inches of rain to parts of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, causing landslides that would be "potentially catastrophic"; Storm surge and life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.
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Mexican civil protection authorities reported power outages across Guerrero, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, while flights to and from Acapulco were suspended and school activities were canceled.
In Guerrero, authorities opened storm shelters despite a brief warning as Otis's strength increased before he reached land. The National Guard stood ready to conduct rescue and evacuation operations while soldiers patrolled Acapulco's deserted beaches.
Reporting by Javier Verdin in Acapulco and Brendan O'Boyle and Diego Ore in Mexico. Additional reporting by Natalia Siniawski. Editing by Dave Graham, Sharon Singleton, Jonathan Oatis, Matthew Lewis and Sandra Maler
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