The strongest-ever hurricane to hit the Pacific Coast of Mexico came out of nowhere. In less than 24 hours, Hurricane Otis grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane before making landfall in Acapulco on Wednesday, leaving 27 dead and four missing, according to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. “We were prepared; however, it was something exceptional and unexpected,” he said on Thursday.
The resort city of nearly 1 million was largely without power after Otis struck the coast with a wind speed near 165 miles per hour. Videos of the aftermath already show hotels and high-rises gutted by the intense winds, but the full level of damage is still unclear due to power outages and downed roads leading to the city and surrounding areas.
Acapulco took a direct hit from the Category 5 eye wall with little advance notice. “We thought it was going to enter through Acapulco or in Tepa, in that coastal fringe, but it hit more in Acapulco,” President López Obrador
said Thursday.
Thousands of military and national guard members have been deployed to the city and surrounding areas to aid in the recovery effort.
The storm, which weakened after it hit the mountains of western Mexico, was a terrible example of the rapid intensification of hurricanes, which is becoming more frequent as ocean temperatures rise. Hurricane models severely miscalculated how Otis would intensify as it traveled over water that was around 88 degrees Fahrenheit:
“Imagine starting your day expecting a stiff breeze and some rain, and overnight you get catastrophic 165 mph winds,” University of Miami climatologist Brian McNoldy wrote on X.
