Signs Everywhere...

As I finished packing the day before the planned flight to Paradise Lodge, a remote fishing lodge on the southern part of Mexico’s Yucatan coast, Dean was a Category 2 hurricane spinning in the Atlantic near Jamaica, and heading toward the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. Dr. Sam McLeod, a surgeon in Orlando, and I had booked this trip about four months ago. It would be McLeod’s first trip.

When we came down the stairs for breakfast on our first day of fishing, Alex, the lodge owner, met us with bad news. The Sian Ka’an Biosphere had been closed and everyone ordered to evacuate. We would not be able fish in our desired destination. He went on with more bad news. Hurricane Dean had strengthened during the night and taken another shift southward. It was now expected to make landfall as a Category 4 storm between Ascension Bay and Espiritu de Santo Bay, less than two hours to our north.

Fast forward to just before the storm...

Hurricane Dean is predicted to hit the lodge 2 a.m. tomorrow and take about four hours to pass. This would be the dreaded “big one.” The town of Mahajual is 15 miles down the coast to our south and we were, in effect, in the center of the bull’s eye. There was much to be done at the lodge and we would not be fishing.

A glimpse from the epicenter...

I awoke at 4 a.m. to the sound of wind howling and rain hitting something. I opened the door of the room and saw trees flopping back and forth above the two-story hotel. Rain was not falling, but being blown sideways. Our roof had been blown off. Kids were obviously frightened and crying in nearby rooms. At this point, I’m wondering “What am I doing here?”

The Aftermath...

The force of wave action from Hurricane Dean was so great on the coast near Mahajual, Mexico, that it forced two vehicles and trailers, along with out buildings and the contents inside Paradise Lodge, across the beach road and into the marsh.

It was only human nature that Alex would want to see what had happened to his lodge. We eventually made it to the edge of town, and Alex announced that he wanted to see if the military or police forces would stop us if we tried to leave. They didn’t try to stop us.

Along the way, we encountered trees, highway signs and electrical supporting towers that had fallen into the road. Fields of banana trees had been leveled. Leaves had been stripped off trees and most trees had been broken midway up their trunk.

Owner Alex Tomaso moved his boats 12 miles inland hoping to protect them from Dean.

Twelve miles inland, Alex’s boats were a mess. His staff had moved the fishing boats so they would not be washed away if the waves were excessively large at the lodge. The pangas were filled with water. One of the flats boats had been deposited on another. A canoe was crushed underneath a flats boat.

All the while, I’m wondering why am I at this place several miles from civilization alongside a desolate road with one of Orlando’s leading surgeons looking at boats damaged by a hurricane?

And that’s when a red compact car passed us at a high rate of speed. The passenger was a 25-year-old reporter from Mexico City who was trying to get a scoop on the damage caused by the hurricane--her assistant was driving. We came upon them a mile down the road.

Paradise Lodge, a fishing lodge near Mahajual, Mexico, where we were staying that week, was the bull’s eye for Hurricane Dean. The owner, Alex Tomaso, is shown here surveying the damage the day after the storm, following our drive down from safe haven.

The young female reporter climbed out of a ditch where the red compact had come to rest in some water and flagged us down. She had a gaping head wound near her temple and was bleeding profusely. McLeod had her lay down on the pavement in front of our car and made a compress out of some of her clean clothes we found in a suitcase. He used the compress to apply pressure on her wound and directed me to tie other articles of clothing together that could be used to secure the compress to her head so as to maintain pressure.

Wave action destroyed the buildings at Paradise Lodge, a fishing lodge near Mahajual, Mexico. The owner, Alex Tomaso, vows to rebuild in the coming months.

Read Larry Kinder’s entire journal in an upcoming webXtra.