Acapulco’s desperate residents cleaned out the city’s largest stores in three days. At least 27 people died after a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane.
In a city without water, electricity or gasoline - where desperate people have been allowed, even encouraged, to take essential goods from damaged stores since Hurricane Otis smashed Acapulco - state police officer Raúl Gallardo stood guard over a mountain of excess.
It is in part the result of a government reaction delayed by the historically fast strengthening of a storm that no one forecast to go from tropical storm to catastrophic Category 5 hurricane in 12 hours. It is also a continuation of a government strategy that addresses problems - drug violence, natural disasters - with personnel, but not necessarily the tools to resolve the situation.
Across Acapulco large stores were cleaned out. Shelves were not only bare, but in some cases the shelves themselves and the ladders that allowed employees to stock them were gone. Most families anxiously hunted for water, with some saying they were rationing their supplies. The municipal water system was out because its pumps had no power.
Ahedo’s cone-shaped adobe rooms appeared to have fared fairly well, but Otis blew out windows and the solar panels that had powered his business and turned his pool an uninviting green.
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