November 3, 2005 - Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Yabadabadoo.

After 3 long days of freight train sized winds Wilma left the islanders to pick the beach up off the street with bulldozers and replace vanished flimsy structures with the latest trends in poor building methods. Some metal-roofed buildings looked like they'd been opened up like a tin of sardines, and while the majority of palm leaf (palapa) roofs held up amazingly well, several buildings in town now look like big angry fluffed up cats. Many ships went down because Wilma stuck around for so long. Had she staid just a day, they would have made it through, but her persistent winds chafed their lines until they banged into piers or neighboring vessels and mangrove leaves and debris clogged their cockpit drains so rain water flooded down below. The big megayacht anchored in the outer bay got it at the last moment and -after failed attempts at docking and subsequently running aground next to the commercial fishing boats in the outer bay- moved into the lagoon the day before the storm. It came away unharmed. Thankfully there were very few injuries in Isla, and the area got a healthy amount of attention after the storm. Care packages and drinking water were helicoptered in for days on end, and president Fox even paid a visit to the island. The power and water companies worked hard to get service restored, and by the time I'm writing this the majority of the island is back online. Cancun is also back up and running. I just hope that Cancun will work equally hard to restore its hotels and start bringing the tourists back. If that doesn't happen, this area will grow very poor very quickly...

posted by Mahi at 1:18 PM  

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