Hurricane Wilma update from Mexico

[mattmexico]

Hello all

Hurricane WIlma has passed, it was strong, long, noisy, windy, lots of rain and sooo slow ... the storm started Friday 4:00 and the eye was passing over Playa Friday 23:00, the last strong winds went away Sunday 11:00. Cel phone service was up and running through the whole storm.

We just got electricity back in very small parts of Playa del Carmen a couple of minutes ago, and the internet is working in the moment. The sun is shining and the ocean is flat.

Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres got hit hard by Hurricane Wilma. Puerto Aventuras got hit as well but not as hard as the last time, Emily. Seems like that Akumal and Tulum are in good shape.

The road north to Cancun between Puerto Morelos and Cancun is still flooded and can not be passed, the road to Puerto Merelos down through the mangroves is flooded too. Around Puerto Morelos a couple of large electicity tower are nocked over.

We have no news from Cozumel other then one phone call, it sounded bad and hit hard.

In Playa del Carmen and Puerto Morelos Restaurants are open, stores are open, water can be bought. ProTec is open and working, we are diving in the caves, don't know when in the ocean but soon. Our hotel is open as well and running. Gass stations are still down but I am very confident that this will change soon.

One word about the water, gas, electricity, fire fighters, police, protecion civil, ambulances and emergency service workers of this area and the ones that came from all over Mexico ( Q.Roo south, Yucatan, Chiapas, Campeche, etc ) to help here. Absolutly awesome. They work so hard and dedicated to get the life back on the road, awesome.

All our staff and friends are ok, most of us where satying in Mom's hotel for three nights.

A newsletter will follow soon with more detailed info and photos

Matt
www.protecdiving.com

 

[Pocoshower]

Glad to have new from you in the SE.

Que bueno que estan todos bien

Best regards

Carlos

 

[mattmexico]

Glad to have new from you in the SE.

Que bueno que estan todos bien

Best regards

Carlos

Special Bulletin – Hurricane Wilma

ProTec Newsletter October 2005



With great sadness I am writing these lines about Hurricane Wilma. The ProTec Newsletter can be subscribed and un-subscribed on our www.protecdiving.com web page, front page in the lower right corner. So please let your friends know that they can receive our Newsletter or if you don’t like to get it please do not hesitate to un-subscribe.



Thanks you for continued support.

ProTec Team


Here is the latest news as of Monday, October 24th, 19:00
Hurricane Wilma has hit the Riviera Maya hard. The eye of the hurricane came through Cozumel and Playa del Carmen on Friday evening 23:00. The storm was big and very slow with lots of rain. Large parts of towns and roads where or are still flooded. Today was a beautiful day, sunshine and a flat ocean.

Cozumel
Cozumel took a direct hit. Its been hit hard. The car ferry got immobilized just prior to the storm and stranded in Chinchorro bank, leaving no ferry transport for help or electricity workers to get to Cozumel. Three cruise ship piers have been badly damages or a partially gone. The caletta marina was badly hit with a lot of boats sitting in it. The northern marina was hit hard and is partially gone. I fear for the worst there, I would assume a lot of schools have been hit there too, destroying the infrastructure to teach the kids.

Puerto Aventuras
Puerto Aventuras got hit again as with Emily with a lot of damage, powerloss, trees, to condos, houses and buildings and 10 smaller boats sunk in the marina. I have not been in the Poblado yet but hope that the damage there is not too bad.

Playa del Carmen
Playa del Carmen took a direct hit and its been hit hard. 5th avenue is damaged glass and palapas. Ocean side buildings are flooded with a couple of feet of sand. Mamitas beach club has been hard but will be rebuilt I am sure. In Playacar beach side buildings have lost there foundations, the beach road is gone at parts. Two planes on the airport flipped. A large number of building is damaged beyond repair. The Super San Francisco Supermarket lost a entire wall.



The good news. Since you are reading this newsletter I had to have electricity and internet access. Amazing how fast parts of town got power back. Utility and emergency crews working restless to restore power and water. Security forces showing presence. Neighbors helping each other, restaurants and stores are open. No gasoline though but since we have partially electricity it can't be far away.



Puerto Morelos
Puerto Morelos got hit hard. The road between Puerto Morelos and Cancun is closed since a large section of it is flooded completely. The road from the gas station to Puerto Morelos proper is flooded too. The gas station is working though. Quite a few of the large power towers are broken. A lot of the palapa roofing is gone but restaurants and stores are open



Cancun
Cancun took a direct hit. The airport is closed but is supposed to be back open by Wednesday. We heard reports that the lagoon in the hotel zone connected with the ocean on the locations. We heard as well that there where some riots, martial law has been declared in Cancun and a curfew is in place. The hotel zone is largely damaged and flooded, the inner town areas are damaged too.



Akumal, Tulum
Small damage only, have not been there, heard its still going, they selling gasoline in Tulum

Whats gonna happen ....
I am not the greatest optimist on the planet but for Tulum, Akumal, Puerto Aventuras and Playa del Carmen I can see its gonna bounce back pretty soon. The way things do improve and the ferocity of the emergency work force to bring it back will succeed pretty fast. There will be areas that will take some more time but in general I am looking optimistic into the future.

ProTec is open, we are diving the caves but the ocean diving is gonna take a while to come back, mostly the boats into the ocean and gasoline.
Just because we got hit by a hurricane we did not disappear, neither a lot of the other dive shops or hotels in the area.

Having just been through the hurricane and its aftermath I am looking far north to Florida where a lot of our friends are just happened to be in the way of windy Wilma. Our thoughts are with you guys and gals.


As always if you are close by and want to chat or give us a call or email please feel free to do so.

info@protecdiving.com
0052-984-8031168

Your ProTec Team

 

[Erik]

Thanks for the report, glad to hear you're ok and still in business.
Peace,
Erik Y.

 

[island_sands]

hi Matt
thanks for that, sounds like a very hard hit, glad to know that you are still up and running. Stay safe, Sara.

 

[mattmexico]

Hello all

Sun is shining and the ocean is flat. No boats allowed out yet since large waves are breaking still on the beach. In a short while I will drive down to Puerto Aventuras, Akumal and Tulum to see how friends fared down there and to see how the access to the cenotes is. I will post and update tonight or tomorrow .. if electricity and internet permit but so fas so good.

Matt
www.protecdiving.com

 

[mattmexico]

Special Bulletin II – Hurricane Wilma

ProTec Newsletter October 2005



Today October 25th Scott and Matt went on a drive down south to Tulum to stop by Puerto Aventuras, Marco's fill station, Xpu Ha 4, Akumal, Hidden Worlds, Chemuyil and Tulum.

The Electricity people are up and running with help from most parts of this country to get the luz back
Cozumel and Cancun are hit the hardest. If you have travel plans to Cancun or Cozumel in the next week or two you may have to change plans, anything from Playa del Carmen on south is fine within a week, as soon as electricity is restored
The red cross started today packing up food, cloth and blankets in a large scale operation.
Newspaper

On the way south Paula read from a newspaper and we got the following information:

Death toll 10 in total - 7 in Cozumel, 2 in Playa del Carmen, 1 in Cancun
The whole area is declared a disaster zone, access and entrance into the zone is limited
38% of the national tourist income is coming from the affected area Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, Cancun and an all effort is made to recover as soon as mid December, as much as possible
15,000 rooms got damages but 50% of them will be back in working order by mid December, we have somewhat close to 30,000 rooms I believe
17 flights where scheduled out of Cancun to evacuate the remaining tourists, no flights in are permitted for a while
1500 tourist in Playa del Carmen, 1500 tourist in Cancun, 800 tourist in Cozumel are still in the area but being evacuated today and tomorrow. The Cozumel tourist are flown out 15 at a time by helicopter to Tulum
Cozumel
A picture emerges that Cozumel has been hit the hardest. I have seen some video pictures today and Scott had a dive operator on the phone.
50% of the boats located in the Caletta are damaged or destroyed, during a hurricane there are some 200 boats in the Caletta
the waterfront walkway and all the building who are on it are severely damaged, bulldozers are clearing the road
no cellular phone service
no electricity
limited access to the island by emergency or supply trucks
the ferry service between Playa and Cozumel is working, free of charge


Puerto Morelos
The upper part of Puerto Morelos is functioning, stores open, restaurants open, a relaxed atmosphere. The lower part of Puerto Morelos took a good hit, specially all the ocean side houses, condos and hotels.
60% of te hotel rooms are damaged or destroyed
I have seen some incredible pictures of destruction from a hotel where Carmen and Arturo celebrated there wedding a couple of weeks ago
A large ferry boat is laying on the beach
Playa del Carmen
We got electricity in a large parts of town, gasoline is going with no lines on the gas stations, Sams Club is open, Chedraui is open, cell phone service is sporadic due to system overload but messages are working fine, internet is working, a large clean up effort begun, the electricity people are doing a tremendous job. The first tourist lay on the beach and in the sun today, its a beautiful day.
Hotels are opening up again, restaurants too. The port is still closed due to larger wave action but the ocean itself is flat.
I would think give it a week and we are fine and back in business.

On the beach it does not look so good, all stores, condos, houses or buildings right on the beach are either damaged, destroyed or gone.



Akumal, Chemuyil, Xpu Ha, Tulum
As we where driving south less and less damage was apparent. Tulum had almost no damage at all, Akumal had a couple of trees and palapas blown over, Chemuyil a coulpe of palapas and light roofs damaged, Xpu Ha looked not to bad, tourist on the beach playing in the waves.


As things are normalizing I feel that I don-t want to ride around on the bad news forever, so this will be the last Wilma update.
Things are getting better, things are up and running, faster in some places, slower in others but we will all come back to see you in the future and welcome you as friends and guests. Our store and hotel is open serving our friends and guests.

Your ProTec Team

 

[mattmexico]

I intended not to write another newsletter regarding Wilma but I have received dozens of request to let people know what is going on and if anything is changing. Well, things are changing slowly, in some areas very slowly, for the better, thank god.

General
There is no TV here in the area so we can not get any news via TV. Only source for news is the internet if people have electricity. Here in Playa and in Tulum newspapers are sold.

Flying in and out on Cancun
The control tower has been knocked over and the airport building itself has been hit but things are getting better.

The airport is open and is receiving flights
• For people that have a return ticket back into Mexico
• From Mexico city regular flights

- International regular airline flights are supposed to resume on November 2nd
- International charter flights are supposed to resume on November 15th to 20th

Cozumel
• It was estimated that some of the diving operators might be in operation within one month
• Some of the small hotels are going to be open within two month
• Some of the south of town resorts are badly damaged and will not be repaired but razed and rebuilt
• Some 30 boats sunk in the caletta marina, some of them with engines on them
• Tomorrow morning ( Saturday 29th ) there is a meeting with the boat owners and captains and the city officials to talk about a help or credit program to help buy and repair engines that have been sunk
• Yesterday on the 27th a cruise ship came by ti pick up stranded tourist and bring them to Florida
• Tomorrow or the day after a cruise ship is coming in with food aid
• The Chedraui supermarket is going to be open tomorrow, latest the day after
• Cozumel has no electricity and no cellular phones are working

Puerto Morelos
The beach front properties, houses, condos, restaurants, hotels and apartments are devastated. Unreal how huge the waves must have been.
• Puerto Morelos has no electricity and no cellular phones are working

Isla Mujeres
I have heard nothing about Isla Mujeres

Hol Box
I have seen some pictures from Hol Box, they got hit hard as well