M.E. - Hurricane Kenna

Many people go on adventure vacations and plan them for weeks. Kyle and I had an adventure vacation in October 2002 in Puerto Vallarta Mexico with out any need to plan. This vacation started out normal (what ever normal is for a trip to PV) and about midway through it became an adventure when Hurricane Kenna came to town.

The first indication we had that something was two nights before it hit, we were walking on the beach and we saw the Cruise ships and Naval ships leaving for deeper water and a school of porpoises swimming in very close to shore. Then the next night as we were leaving church some of our friends cancelled a dinner appointment for the next night because they said they were leaving town to avoid the hurricane.

The morning of the hurricane started out with us looking out our balcony to see waves crashing against the patio of the hotel pool area some 30 yards from the ocean. Soon we were being asked to leave our room to head to a safer part of the hotel. This entailed a run though the lobby while avoiding the four-foot waves rolling in from the ocean and climbing up to the fifth floor of the adjoining condo building to be sheltered from the 150 mph winds, rain and the sea water running through the streets.

We watched from our perch as busses floated down the street, horns blaring and lights flashing. We saw one man desperate to save his truck crawl out a window and into the swirling water and tie it off with a fire hose. As the eye passed over and in the calm, EMTs arrived and carried out a couple on Sea Kayaks, the glass being blown out in their room had cut them up. As the storm started back up we watched as the back of the hotel next door started to crumble, the people waded to safety in chest deep water across the street to a different hotel.

During and after the storm the employees or our hotel, Canto Del Sol, stayed and took care of the guest of the hotel even though many of them were very scared. As soon as the storm ended they trucked in fresh food and water for everyone and set up make shift kitchens anywhere they could without power or running water. They made us as comfortable as they could with food, water and candles. The next morning they even found us a different hotel that had power and water restored for us to move into.

Was I scared? There was one brief moment of panic when I saw the cars banging up against the ceiling in the garage as we finished running though the lobby, but because there was no time to stop and I did one of those ‘oh God, oh God’ prayers I was soon at peace and knew everything would work out fine. In the aftermath it was amazing to see the destruction in the tourist section of town and then to see that there was no damage to the tattered homes surrounding the dump. About that experience I just tell people that there are folks that pay a lot of money for that type of adventure and we got it as a blessing.

Next M.E. – The Big C