Missing the Eye of the Storm
Among the worst things that can happen to you on vacation is a natural disaster. Therefore, tourists and inhabitants alike were following reports about the course of Hurricane Dean with growing apprehension.Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is a popular tourist spot with places like Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum lined up along the coast. The last time a hurricane had hit this area, which was Hurricane Wilma in 2005, the damage had been severe. Much of the beach was swept away.
What would happen this time? With Dean placed in the strongest storm category 5, meaning wind of 250 km/h are circling around his eye, preparations for his landfall are made. Hotel staff are covering up windows and tying down anything that could cause damage when lifted up by the force of such a storm. In the areas where Dean is predicted to make his landfall, inhabitants and tourists are evacuated. Travel agencies cancel their flights to Yucatan for the next week.
At the same time, about 200 km up the coast, people are still jumping around in the ocean, rather enjoying the higher waves caused by the wind. Soon they resort to the typical tourist activity in the eye of something new, dramatic, and potentially dangerous: they photograph it. Standing safely on the beach, heads are turned up and down the coastline such as to look for the eye of the storm to appear in the distance. But all there is to see are dark clouds and an increasingly angry sea, which has driven the last brave ones away now, too.
The tension becomes stronger towards the night. News channels constantly show the huge whirl which is the hurricane on satellite pictures, stressing its destructive power. At our hotel, guests are told to stay at their rooms during the night and are given sandwiches for breakfast for the next day. Wind and rain pound on the building. Insecurity about what will happen mixes with a strange sense of excitement.
Many guests are standing outside (despite warnings), commenting on the thunderstorm and trying to ban a bolt of lightning onto their memory cards. “Look, that was a good one!”, is the commentary on a series of lightnings followed by a roll of thunder. When we went to our rooms, a little fear remained. But when people started to carefully sneak out of their rooms the next morning, driven by curiosity at the effects of the storm, all the apprehension proved to be unnecessary.
The area around Cancun was spared of the full strength of Dean, which had caused flooding and other damage down the coast. No uprooted trees, sprawled chairs, not even sand blown into the swimming pool. The only thing left to photograph was the still unrestful ocean and each others wind blown hair.
One Comment, Comment or Ping
mike
This writer ROCKS! Such insite. I felt like I was there. I felt like I knew this person. Why no bi-line? Who wrote this wonderful article?
Sep 5th, 2007
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