Hurricane Dean: Mexico Shows How to Do It Right
By Magali Devic, Editor, Climate Alert
The first major hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, Dean has proven the most intense tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin since Hurricane Wilma of 2005. It also is the first hurricane to make landfall in the Atlantic basin at Category 5 intensity in almost 15 years — the last storm to do so was Hurricane Andrew on August 24, 1992.
Killing an estimated 24 people in its earlier sweep through the Caribbean (including deaths in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Martinique, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Dominica), Dean crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula on August 21st at Category 5 level before heading toward the East. Although by then weakened to a tropical storm, Dean hit the States of Veracruz, Puebla, Jalisco and Michoacán with strong winds and pounding rain, triggering deadly landslides. Mexican authorities successfully deployed a set of emergency measures extending to remote Mayan communities particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, with reconstruction and reparation of the damages already occurring almost immediately after the passage of Dean.
Strong hurricane, few casualties…
On August 21st, although Dean swept over the Yucatan peninsula as a rare Category 5 hurricane, which is capable of causing catastrophic damage, its impact zone was relatively narrow.
Major resorts and tourist cities such as Cancún, Cozumel and Playa del Carmen in the Northern part of Quintana Roo were spared the worst of the storm, but the eye's path passed 50 miles north of Chetumal, the state capital and home to 137,000 people, causing widespread flooding, hundreds of fallen trees, and wind gusts of 200 mph (320 km/h) reported.
However, one town, the cruise ship port of Majahual, in the state of Quintana Roo, underwent some serious damages with the demolishing of hundreds of houses, crumpled steel girders, splintered wooden structures and washed away parts of concrete dock. Other affected areas were located in a part of the coast that is less built up but includes an important nature reserve called Sian Ka'an.
On August 23rd, after shrinking to a rainy tropical depression over central Mexico, Dean still wreaked havoc, peeling roofs and uprooting agriculture, as Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera reported "a tremendous amount of damage." Officials said that about 90,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in Mexico with an estimated 60,000 people in shelters overnight.
One of the most dramatic consequences (predicted by the hurricane center) was that Dean brought storm-surge flooding of up to 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 meters) above normal tide levels, "dangerous battering waves," and up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain, which caused life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, as testified by the 70% of Ciudad Del Carmen that flooded, with water three feet deep in many houses in the oil city of 120,000.
However, despite fears that Dean would destroy much of the region's infrastructure, officials expressed relief after the passage the storm. President Felipe Calderon, who left the Quebec summit early to oversee the rescue and recovery efforts, declared after touring the Southern region: "given the fury this hurricane presented, we've come out OK, and we've come out OK because we were prepared (…)"
Figure 1: A beach in Cancun after
Hurricane Dean passed
A better handling of the situation: "Everybody knew what to do"
When Mexico's Yucatán resort region had been devastated in 2005 by Wilma, a Category 3 hurricane causing damages totaling $7.5 billion, lessons were learned from the fierce storm, which in turn helped the region better prepare for Dean. An emergency response was implemented at the outset of the catastrophe with the objective of putting disaster prevention and mitigation at the forefront. Dr. Michel Rosengaus Moshinsky, the Head of the National Meteorological Service of Mexico, played a crucial role in prevention and emergency measures through the presentation of four video conferences with CONAGUA (National Commission of Water) and the organization of two important meetings with senior officials and key decision-makers from the State federal agencies and Secretaries to communicate and assess the impact of the tropical storm and determine collective practical measures to be executed in all the affected areas. According to him, the States of Hidalgo and Puebla were the most severely affected by the storm (see table 1), which posed a threat mostly to "non-coastal zone" and sparsely populated areas.
Actions were also coordinated both at the federal level and state level with the mobilization of 4000 personnel of the federal Army for Quintana Roo state. Simultaneously, the Federal Secretary of Public Security deployed over 350 Federal agents in the region. Through this concerted effort, Mexican officials managed the evacuation of at least 80,000 tourists from the coastal region. In the States of Yucatan and Quintana Roo, meanwhile, approximately 1,200 shelters with capacity for more than 70,000 people were prepared, most of them located in schools. The night before the storm unleashed, Cancun virtually became a "ghost town," commented Luis Roberto Acosta, Director of Latin American Regional Affairs of the Climate Institute.
Oil production was also suspended for security reasons and was followed by the evacuation of nearly 20,000 workers from oil platforms near the city of Campeche, Mexico's main oil production center, cutting off about 2.5 million barrels of oil per day.
At the local level, advance preparations by the civil-protection agency, the Red Cross, and the Army went into gear well ahead of Dean's arrival, especially in the State of Quintana Roo.
Since the beginning of the year, the municipal civil protection agency has been going around to schools and churches, informing people about hurricane response plans to avoid repeating the problems that arose during Wilma when people became frightened and ran to shelters at the last minute. This time, Playa Del Carmen, a city of just over 100,000 in Northeast Quintana Roo, set up 12 shelters stocked with supplies and hosting a medic. It cleaned the streets of debris to prevent objects from being tossed around by the wind and cleared the drainage system to prevent flooding. Quintana Roo's Governor Felix González Canto was involved in every step, traveling extensively to reassure the population, and appeared on television with regular updates to ensure that people were informed of the development of the plan.
Quinatana Roo: A model leadership
Quintana Roo's experience in incurring no loss of life, or virtually none (reports are not in from all Mayan villages), is so far as we can determine virtually unprecedented for an area in which a hurricane made landfall with Category 5 intensity. Although some of Quintana Roo's good fortune is attributable to the fact that except for Majahual the hurricane's most intense winds swept through lightly populated areas, much also seems due to some remarkable foresight and leadership by Quintana Roo's young governor and the widespread mobilization of emergency preparedness professionals. This same foresight seemed evident on May 25, 2007 when Governor Gonzalez Canto hosted leaders from the Climate Institute, El Cucuy Foundation, and Senator Ludivina Menchaca for a discussion in his office in the Governor's Residence in Chetumal of how he might strengthen Quintana Roo's capacity to respond to climate change. Soon after that Governor González Canto made clear in his World Environment Day Speech on June 5 that Quintana Roo would be an active participant in the International Leadership Alliance for Climate Stabilization coordinated by the Climate Institute.
Figure 2: Luis Roberto Acosta, Ludivina Menchaca,
Governor Felix Gonzalez Canto and John Topping
When Dean was bearing down on Quintana Roo, Luis Roberto Acosta, a veteran of disaster response efforts in States such as Veracruz, was working alongside Quintana Roo Disaster Response personnel as an observer for the Municipal and State program of Benito Juarez Municipality where he helped coordinate prevention efforts and traveled in Chetumal where he observed "some minor infrastructure damage." "Some electric towers fell, roads were obstructed, but major damages were reported in forest and agricultural products" he stated. Quintana Roo's Governor has already committed to one of the most ambitious reforestation project in his state.
"The electricity was cut, but restored to half of the city within 12 hours" ... "Governor Gonzalez Canto did a remarkable job," commented Acosta. Popular coastal cities of Cozumel and Cancún were readied to welcome tourists again.
Figure 3: Men re-installing a traffic light in
Cancun
Cancun was "overprotected" and although it was not seriously harmed, inhabitants of southern Mexico - which will be increasingly affected by natural disaster in the years to come - have developed a "new attitude to weather conditions" noted Acosta. Alluding to Majahual, he stated, "There should be a consideration of transforming this city into a sustainable destination" to promote the virtue of eco-tourism and protect the biodiversity of the coral reef barriers that Mexico shares with Belize.
Table 1: Death and Damages from Hurricane Dean 2007 (click on table to see enlargement)
