We’ve all seen the devastation from Helene in the Smoky Mountain region, and Milton in Florida, and there is plenty of ongoing coverage of the aftermath in those regions, which I’ll continue to follow.
This morning I saw the only update from a mainstream source that I can find about the hurricanes you didn’t hear about, Otis and John, which clobbered Acapulco, Mexico, almost exactly one year apart. (US media uninterested because, you know, Brown people)
The Reuters report above looks like deleted scenes from a Mad Max movie.
Hurricane Otis, a year ago was the first Category 5 storm to make landfall on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Rapid intensification caused the storm to blow up into a Cat 5 before the models could even catch up.
Weather Channel special report covers this.
The damage was apocalyptic.
Almost exactly one year later, Hurricane John, a slow moving, water saturated beast, came ashore and dropped a meter of rain on the same region.
The the video at the top of page is the only mainstream follow up I have seen on what the community looks like now.
“We’re desperate,” said Barbara Encinas, who was queuing up outside a supermarket.
“We haven’t recovered from Hurricane Otis yet, and now we’re in a situation that seems to be worse,” she told AFP.
Rocio Parras, who was also in the queue, said Acapulco was enduring “terrible days” yet again.
“I feel that it is the greatest tragedy we have ever experienced,” she said. “Water, floods, people are drowning. Acapulco is totally destroyed. We need help.”
At least five people were killed, one in Acapulco and four in the surrounding mountains, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, although local media have reported a higher number.
According to the Milenio television channel, 13 people were feared dead, including several children.
Acapulco has been drenched by several days of rain “like we haven’t seen in a long time,” said President Lopez Obrador, adding that 19 neighborhoods were flooded.
