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The Aftermath of Otis: Thursday, October 26

Oaxaca Newscast
Oaxaca Newscast
The aftermath of Otis
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The full impact of of the damage to property and life that Hurricane Otis has wrought on the city of Acapulco and the surrounding state of Guerrero is still being assessed, as crews work to restore electricity, telecommunications, and road access to the region. Experts at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said the Category 5 hurricane was the most powerful storm to hit this part of Mexico in recorded history.

As of early Thursday, most media were depending on photos and videos shared on social media.

Several of the city’s iconic beachfront hotels suffered significant damage.


Landslides caused the main highway connecting Acapulco to the rest of the state of Guerrero to be closed. The city of Chilpancingo, about 70 miles inland from Acapulco, also saw some flooding and suffered communications disruptions.

A unnamed doctor on duty at the IMSS hospital in Acapulco told a reporter from Latinus.com that 16 patients died as a result of power outages that prevented them from getting the treatments they needed. We have not been able to independently verify that claim.

The hurricane’s extraordinarily rapid growth took meteorologists by surprise and have experts worried about the impact of warming oceans on the speed of hurricane formation. A study published just last week in the journal “Scientific Reports” (via Smithsonian) shows that Atlantic hurricanes are twice as likely to go from category 1 to category 3 in 24 hours than in previous decades. Otis went from tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

The New York Times points out that the storm is one of the first major natural disasters to hit the country after President AndrĂ©s Manuel LĂłpez Obrador. The Times reported that the FONDEN was once considered one of the world’s most advanced financial tools for disaster recovery, automatically putting billions of dollars away each year that could only be used for disaster recovery. President Lopez-Obrador eliminated the fund in 2021 citing “corruption.”

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Part of the property belonging to the wild-animal sanctuary Yaguar Xoo near Tlacolula caught fire early Tuesday morning. The Jaguar sanctuary’s director-general, Victor Rosas Vigil, spoke with Oaxaca Newscast via WhatsApp.

“The animals are all fine, both physically and mentally,” he said. “The fire was limited to a part of the property where people from nearby communities sell handicrafts at fair prices without having to pay rent. Authorities are still investigating, but it appears that all those handicrafts were stolen and then the fire was deliberately set.”

The roughly 30 animals at the sanctuary are property of the nation, Rosas explained, and when possible, they’re rehabilitated and released into the wild. The animal sanctuary is open for guided educational tours from 10am to 5pm every day except Mondays.

One of the knock-on effects of Hurricane Otis is that it has partially disabled Mexico’s advanced early-warning system for earthquakes. Sensors located in Guerrero are out of communication. If a major earthquake were to hit the coast of Guerrero before communication lines are re-established, residents of Oaxaca, Mexico City, and other areas would not receive advance warning.

This morning at 10:15am at in the lobby of the RectorĂ­a building at UABJO there will be a Day of the Dead themed concert, dance, and theater performance:

And at 7pm, the Oaxaca Chamber Orchestra will be celebrating Haydn at Centro Cultural San Pablo. Entry is free but space is limited.

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Categorized as News

By Peter Aronson

I’m an award-winning radio journalist, a former Latin America correspondent, a longtime resident of Mexico and — for the past few years — a resident of Oaxaca. Now I host Oaxaca Newscast!