Hurricane Delta
This past Saturday tropical storm Gamma came through here. We had 60+ mph winds and a ton of rain. Our power was out most of the day and a lot of leaves and branches were strewn about the city. But everyone was happy it was a tropical storm and not a hurricane.
On Sunday morning our Airbnb hosts were sweeping up some leaves in front of the place. I told them I hoped that this would be the last storm of the year, since it looked like hurricane Delta would pass well north of us. We all kind of laughed about that. The photo below is what the National Hurricane Center showed for Sunday evening.
The funny thing about hurricanes is they don’t always do what you’d like them to do. On Monday morning we started seeing the wind models showing we’d get some extra wind from Delta, but we’d be fine. By Monday afternoon the hurricane got upgraded and, while it would pass well north of us, we’d be getting some pretty strong winds.
By Tuesday morning the storm dramatically shifted south. We were now directly in it’s path. The local governor ordered all stores to be closed by 5pm. There were lines everywhere. They restricted the sale of alcohol. I was in a long line in a store with some extra food and some beers. The cashier confiscated the beers when I got to the checkout line. Thankfully I had a full bottle of some tequila liqueur back home 😊
And we got the expected State Department notice in our inboxes.
What’s funny was how beautiful a day Tuesday was shaping up to be. I guess it was the calm before the storm…literally.
By the afternoon they upgraded Delta to a category 4 hurricane. This was getting serious!
At least one of the local shops had a sense of humor.
By the afternoon clouds were starting to form.
By the early evening, just before the sun went down, it started raining. They expected the winds to start around 8pm and the storm to hit around 1am. I set up a WhatsApp group with the guy from Houston in the apartment next to me, the couple from Dallas in the apartment above us, and our hosts in their home on the ground floor. The good news was that this building survived Hurricane Wilma in 2005 according to our host. Wilma was a category 5 hurricane, but it lingered for two days as it circled between Playa del Carmen and Cancun. Delta appeared to be moving fast so our host didn’t expect too much damage.
We were all texting back and forth as the evening commenced. I started watching the Lakers playoffs game at 8pm. I went out to my balcony after the 1st quarter. It was raining, but still calm. I went out at halftime. Still calm. The game ended around 10:30 and everything was still calm. So I started watching the Dodgers playoff game. By midnight the Dodgers were up 5-1, I was getting really sleepy, and there was still no sign of the storm. So I decided to just go to bed then.
I woke up at 1am and looked out the windows. Raining, but still calm. I woke up at 2am. Same thing. Then I got woken up at 4:20am. The hurricane switch had definitely turned on! The winds had gotten strong and loud.
The winds really starting picking up around 5am.
Then, finally the power went out at around 5:30am. So it was just the wind howling in the darkness.
The sunrise Tuesday was officially around 6:30am, but by around 6am there was starting to be light in the sky.
What was I doing during this? I was texting back and forth with my neighbors, reading a book on my phone and going back and forth to the windows to watch it. The building was made of reinforced concrete and our host had installed extra thick windows. So the apartment wasn’t moving at all and the windows felt safe. It was just the intense noise of the wind that was disconcerting. And it would come in waves. It would sort of lull for a bit and then would come in blasts of over 100mph. It was definitely much worse than the wind of tropical storm Gamma on Saturday, which got up to around 60mph.
Finally, just before 7am, the hurricane switch turned off. Literally! The winds died down significantly and everything suddenly felt much calmer. I had no power and no Internet and was exhausted. So I just went to bed.
That day I walked around the city with one of my neighbors. There wasn’t a lot of damage. Just a lot of tree branches down on the streets and some minor flooding. We got real lucky. The hurricane got downgraded to a category 2 just before landfall, it ended up going a bit north of here, and it only lasted 2.5 hours. Power stayed out the rest of the day where we lived and came back on much later that night.
So I guess I can stamp that hurricane badge (not that I was looking to do that!) and everyone here can go on with their lives again.
