The week began with three days of diving on Cozumel's beautiful reefs. We do not yet know what shape those reefs are in following Hurricane Wilma.
Vicki and I were caught on Cozumel by Hurricane Wilma. At one point Wilma was the strongest Category 5 hurricane on record. It remained a very powerful and slow moving Category 4 storm as it approached Cozumel. Unlike most hurricanes, which move over an area in a matter of hours, Wilma subjected Cozumel to hurricane force winds for 2 days. The resulting devastation is hard to put into words.
Many stories might be told about Hurricane Wilma from the perspective of the tourists trapped there. One story that should be told regards the irresponsible conduct and favoritism of U.S. carriers, in particular Continental Airlines. Another story that should be told regards the invisibility of the U.S. Consul on the island. Certainly the devastation of the island is daunting.
But the real story that should be told is the story of the people of the island -- people who faced perhaps the worst storm in history with remarkable calm, civility, resourcefulness, and humanity.
The week began with three days of diving on Cozumel's beautiful reefs.
We do not yet know what shape those reefs are in following Hurricane
Wilma.
Movie of Hurricane Wilma from October 17, 2005 through October 25,
2005. (Infrared GOES images. 7 Mb file) The movie plays at a rate
of 10 hours per second. Note that Cozumel remains in the intense
central part of the hurricane for roughly 5 seconds in the film, or 50
hours of real time.
The following is my complete collection of photographs of Cozumel
before, during, and after Hurricane Wilma. I will post an edited
and annotated collection later, but wanted to get these up in a timely
fashion. Many of the images are of poor quality. It is very
difficult to keep a camera and its optics happy when the humidity is
100%, rain is pouring, and the wind is blowing. (Most of the
images are taken with a camera in an underwater housing, which allowed
the use of a very wide angle lens that was next to impossible to keep
clean.) Even so, I hope the collection has some value as a
journal of one group's encounter with the storm.
TO BROWSE PHOTOS: Click on a photo to launch a frame by frame
browser.
TO DOWNLOAD PHOTOS: FULL - Full sized / SM - 800 pixels / TH - 400
pixels
Sunday, October 16
We stayed in the El Cid La Ceiba hotel, located on the waterfront south of town. The images from Sunday and Monday, October 16 and 17 show the hotel and a few pictures from around town.
Tuesday, October 18
Wednesday, October 19
Wilma intensified dramatically Tuesday night. We did not dive
Wednesday, but instead booked a Thursday flight, then walked around
town watching preparations for a hurricane that at that time was
expected to pass by to the east of Cozumel.
Thursday, October 20 -- 8:00 AM
What the pictures don't show is the trip that we made to the airport,
only to discover that the Continental flight that we had been confirmed
on the night before never arrived. We returned to La Ceiba to
join the other 40+ residents of the hotel who were also unable to get
off the island in advance of the storm.
Thursday, October 20 -- 11:00 AM
La Ceiba is a waterfront hotel, and was not a safe place to be.
Here we arrive at what was to become our new home. Hotel Mary
Carmen, thank you!
Thursday, October 20 -- 1:00 PM
Waiting on Wilma. The food being delivered here turned out to be
the last we would see for a time.
Friday, October 21 -- 7:00 AM
We went into our rooms at 9:00 PM Thursday night, as the wind was
becoming more and more intense. Power was turned off on the
island around 3:15 Friday morning. We expected that Thursday
night would be the worst of the storm, which would move on past.
Instead, Thursday night was just the beginning, and proved far from the
worst that Wilma had to offer.
Friday, October 21 -- 3:15 PM
The eye of the hurricane passed to the north of downtown,
allowing us a brief respite from the worst of the storm. We were
just inside the eye wall. Not far down the coast, the southern
part of the island was taking the full force of the winds in the eye
wall, blowing from the ocean onto land.
Friday, October 21 -- 5:15 PM
As the eye passed by, the winds began to blow from the south and
east. The front door of the hotel was a local casualty. One
effect of the breach was to provide us with access to the outside
world.
Saturday, October 22 -- 6:00 AM
Night 2 proved much worst than night 1, as the hurricane stalled right
on top of us. By Saturday morning, however, the center of the
storm had moved over the corner of the Yucatan and had weakened
somewhat. In the waning hours of the storm we began to venture
out to see what had become of the island.
