Aerial footage has emerged showing the devastation Hurricane Otis caused in Acapulco after the storm ripped through the city, killing 27 people in the process.
The footage shows the beach resort waterfront completely ruined, with debris littering resorts and apartment buildings alike.
The Category 5 storm brought floods and sustained winds of 165 miles per hour, with damage seen to balconies and roofs in the video, as well as shattered windows.
At least four people, including three military personnel, were still missing as of Thursday morning, a day after the powerful storm made landfall.
Due to the intense winds that Otis brought with it, it is now on record as the strongest landfalling Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone.
The Category 5 storm brought floods and sustained winds of 165 miles per hour, with damage seen to balconies and roofs in the video
Due to the intense winds that Otis brought with it, it is now on record as the strongest landfalling Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone
The disastrous weather front was centered about 55 miles south-southeast of Acapulco, and its ruinous effects were also moving north-northwest at 9 mph.
Otis turned from mild to monster in record time, and scientists were struggling to figure out how and why they didn´t see it coming.
Brown floodwaters extended for miles in some areas. Many residents were taking basic items from stores to survive.
Others left with pricier goods, in widespread rampages through the area’s stores.
The early images and accounts were of extensive devastation, toppled trees and power lines lying in brown floodwaters that extended for miles.
Resulting destruction delayed a comprehensive response by the government, which was still assessing the damage along Mexico’s Pacific coast, and made residents desperate.
Many of the once-sleek beachfront hotels in Acapulco looked like toothless, shattered hulks a day after the Category 5 storm blew out hundreds – and possibly thousands – of windows.
While some 10,000 military troops were deployed to the area, they lacked the tools to clean tons of mud and fallen trees from the streets.
Brown floodwaters extended for miles in some areas. Many residents were taking basic items from stores to survive
Debris litters a beach after Hurricane Otis ripped through Acapulco, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023
The disastrous weather front was centered about 55 miles south-southeast of Acapulco, and its ruinous effects were also moving north-northwest at 9 mph
Many of the once-sleek beachfront hotels in Acapulco looked like toothless, shattered hulks a day after the Category 5 storm
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador toured an area of the city on Thursday and said that Otis toppled every power-line pole in the region.
This has left most of the city’s one million residents without electricity, and the municipal water system was also shut down.
The President said: ‘The people sheltered, protected themselves and that’s why fortunately there weren’t more tragedies, loss of human life.’
One victim is a solider who died after a wall inside his home collapsed on him, the president said.
Juan Pablo López, 26, had been talking to his wife when their call was cut off early Wednesday as Otis made landfall.
She had returned to Acapulco to be with her family and give birth to their son a month ago. Lopez was at home in Cancun.
With no information coming in, he created an online chat with friends and family from and invited friends who has emigrated to the U.S. to add fellow locals.
He said: ‘I’m very worried for my newborn son. We started to cross-reference information, to share what we found, almost like a WhatApp newspaper.’
A woman is helped across a highway blocked by a landslide triggered by Hurricane Otis, near Acapulco
Tourism infrastructure on the beach lays in shambles after Hurricane Otis made landfall
Many residents were taking basic items from stores to survive. Others left with pricier goods, in widespread rampages through the area’s stores
The early images and accounts were of extensive devastation, toppled trees and power lines lying in brown floodwaters that extended for miles
Hundreds of trucks from the government electricity company arrived in Acapulco early Wednesday, but seemed at a loss as to how to restore power.
Forecasters and meteorologists are baffled at how they did not see Otis’ catastrophic path coming.
The city was warned it would just be a tropical storm, but the usually-reliable computer models failed to predict its explosive intensification.
University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said: ‘It’s one thing to have a Category 5 hurricane make landfall somewhere when you’re expecting it.
‘But to have it happen when you’re not expecting anything to happen is truly a nightmare.’
MIT atmospheric sciences professor and hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel said that ‘the models completely blew it.’
McNoldy said there may be a mystery ingredient that scientists just don’t know right now, but water is key.
A damaged car lays on a street divider in Acapulco, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023
People carry away a mattress, a television monitor and a bicycle from a store at a shopping mall
A damaged car sits under a fallen tree and utility pole on a road next to Acapulco International Airport
Forecasters and meteorologists are baffled at how they did not see Otis’ catastrophic path coming
The surface waters off the Mexican coast were warm but ‘not crazy warm,’ said University at Albany atmospheric scientist Kristen Corbosiero. Bennan and McNoldy said those waters were maybe 1 or 2 degrees above normal.
Below that, the water was much hotter than usual ‘and there’s just a ton of fuel out there right now,’ McNoldy said.
Still, the storm didn’t linger and feed on that, which would be expected in rapid intensification, Brennan added.
Jakob Sauczuk was staying with a group of friends at a beachfront hotel when Otis hit. ‘We laid down on the floor, and some between beds.’
Pablo Navarro, an auto parts worker who was lodged in temporary accommodations at a beachfront hotel, thought he might die in his 13th story hotel room.
‘I took shelter in the bathroom, and thankfully the door held,’ said Navarro. ‘But there were some room where the wind blew out the windows and the doors.’
It took nearly all day Wednesday for authorities to partially reopen the main highway connecting Acapulco to the state capital Chilpancingo and Mexico City.
The vital ground link allowed dozens of emergency vehicles, personnel and trucks carrying supplies to reach the battered port.
A woman walks carries a mirror looted from a furniture store on Wednesday after the storm made landfall
It took nearly all day Wednesday for authorities to partially reopen the main highway connecting Acapulco to the state capital Chilpancingo and Mexico City
Acapulco is at the foot of steep mountains – where luxury homes and slums alike cover the hillsides with views of the Pacific Ocean.
Once drawing Hollywood stars for its nightlife, sport fishing and cliff diving shows, the port has in recent years fallen victim to competing organized crime groups that have sunk the city into violence.
This has in turn driven many international tourists to the Caribbean waters of Cancun and the Riviera Maya or beaches farther down the Pacific coast in the state of Oaxaca.
López Obrador noted that Otis was a stronger hurricane than Pauline, which hit Acapulco in 1997, destroying swaths of the city and killing more than 300 people.