Breathe
By Karla Galarce Sosa
Acapulco, Guerrero
On the eve of the devastation caused by Hurricane Otis, rereading the chronicles that other colleagues have shared once again awakens in me a sense of alertness.
When I review the photos and videos I took last year that were used for the notes I wrote, I also have mixed feelings, not only because of what I was finding on my way, but also because of what I have in front of me today.
A year ago, I witnessed thousands leaving the city where I live in terror as emergency and search teams and dozens of National Guard police trucks arrived on Thursday, October 24, 2023 as the sun was setting, almost 24 hours after the event. In the face of all this, the rapture that would not stop.
I remember how I began my search for other data to the laughable number of dead people that the federal government offered in the first two weeks; from the implausible figure of dozens of missing people and the lack of data due to the extensive damage in the city.
One year since that experience, of recognizing the love and generosity of those who were companions in tragedy and today are friends. New friendships with whom we can look each other in the eye and smilingly boast "we are alive".
However, we are a couple of days away from the first month of a new tragedy that has clouded the lives of those of us who live in Acapulco, considered a paradise and the Mexican jewel of international tourism.
Acapulco was once again covered with water and mud, but this time, there were mudslides that left streets in popular neighborhoods impassable and are still being cleaned.
Hurricane Otis tore off roofs and windows, blew out the windows of cars and houses, stripped the weakest buildings and flooded part of the Diamond Zone. There was not a single house in the city that was not damaged.
The people, all of them, shared painful stories of fear and hopelessness. Otis exhibited the marked inequality, the decades of neglect in public services, as everything was focused on the tourist zone.
This powerful category five hurricane claimed the lives of 52 people. Popular areas were not only left without trees, but the precarious houses were completely uprooted and in some neighborhoods today there are no houses, because families have not been able to pay a bricklayer to build them a wall, or put a roof over their heads to shelter them from the arrival of another storm.
The cash aid that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave to the victims who were registered in the census made labor and materials more expensive, making them unaffordable for many of us.
For more than six months we lived through hell due to the lack of trees, the endless lines to get water in the sunshine, to buy gasoline or food.
The following months, contrary to the versions of the federal government, were as if time had stopped, as we spent days without cell phone signal, with frequent power outages and in the relentless effort to resume a new daily life when everything we knew had collapsed.
Hurricane John, on the other hand , accentuated the effects of Otis, since the amount of water that fell in five days in Acapulco caused dangerous landslides and strong water currents that destroyed roads, streets and highways, buried concrete houses and caused the death of 15 people.
This second devastation, a new and catastrophic hurricane affected all regions of Guerrero and left the Diamante zone under water up to three meters high in some parts, such as Puerto Marqués.
There is much talk that the heart of Guerrero's economy was destroyed, causing the families affected a year ago and now to find in the blockades the only way to be heard in order to receive economic support.
Every day there is a blockade that disrupts the city , either because of the federal government's census or because of the lack of water, since the water supply system was completely destroyed this time, which was not the case last year.
At the end of López Obrador's federal administration, the head of federal welfare, Ariadna Montiel, who was ratified by President Claudia Sheinbaun Pardo, came to Acapulco with the current national leader of Morena and then Secretary of the Interior, Luis María Alcalde Luján, to close the facades of the houses in the amphitheater with multicolored paintings.
Many people thought it was the best end to the administration. I believe that painting will not solve the urgent need for safe housing, will not provide a family and self-care plan for natural disasters, nor will it change our current education that disrupts ecosystems.
Why spend on paint and not begin to clean up bodies of water? Why hand out money and goods to the people again and not design mechanisms to avoid a new flood? Why legitimize the invasions of sites that in other administrations were declared uninhabitable zones, as is the case of Campestre de la Laguna, where the municipal and state governments have come to say "you are not alone"? Why maintain businesses on the federal zone, on the sand strip, being historically irregular?
It had been warned that the imminent manifestation of climate change would lead to stronger hydro-meteorological phenomena that would modify the coastline, but no one paid attention.
It had been warned that Acapulco would be one of the cities that would be underwater.
It had been warned that nature would recover its spaces and we continue to ignore it.
Should we count the unfortunate deaths and economic losses to measure the force of nature?
We have learned to be resilient in spite of everything, but where is the mental health? Even my dogs get upset with every rain, with every blizzard, with every clap of thunder or lightning.
Are we really capable of withstanding another hurricane under these conditions? How do we establish a truce with nature and can we coexist?
I have more doubts than answers because to this day I have not defined if I keep or change my zip code. The rainy season is not over, but my neighbors only comment "here comes another one".
We continue to clean our houses and recover what John left us, licking the wounds that Otis keeps open, but with the certainty that we are alive, still sad and disgruntled, alive and whole, with no funerals nearby.
What I do recognize is the inability disguised as disinterest of the authorities to promote a culture of civil protection, a change of consumerist habits or modify habits focused on a true education of environmental care.
We have a lot to change, but the change will not come from the authorities because they have demonstrated their incapacity.
We lack strength as a society, we lack organization and, of course, the basics to make the leap. But we will not achieve this alone, but in the company of States that have overcome tragedies such as the ones we are going through.
Hurricane Otis reminded me that we still have rulers interested in their image and with their sights set on the next election.
Hurricane John has forced me to learn to receive and to be grateful, because unlike Otis when I went out for help, this time, I stayed at home and received those who, with much love, came to help me.
The feeling that time stood still with Otis, I have it here again. People are still living and we, on this side, are still cleaning up.
*Journalist based in the port of Acapulco, Guerrero. A graduate in Marine Ecology from the Autonomous University of Guerrero, she has dedicated her career to gender, human rights and environmental issues. For the past four years, she has been working for the news agency Quadratín, where she has deepened her knowledge in these specialties. Previously, she collaborated for more than a decade in the newspaper El Sur, a reference in Guerrero. In addition, her work has been published in the portal Con Perspectiva, directed by women journalists and cultural promoters, as well as in Revista Costa Brava and El Faro de la Costa Chica and Sur Acapulco.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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