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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2005 
Fox Boils as Relief Effort Takes Shape
 Wire services
| | Mexican President Vicente Fox accompanied by his wife, Marta Sahagun, waves as he surveys the damage to the resort city of Cancun after the passing of Hurricane Wilma. (Photo: Israel Leal) |
Valladolid, Yucatan - Tempers shortened in Hurricane Wilma-battered Cancun Monday as federal officials reported some trouble deciding who was in charge of security and which of the region's many posthurricane needs should be attended to first.
"I want the command operating at 100 percent, now!" barked President Vicente Fox, inspecting the hurricane strike zone for a second day. The eruption came during a meeting of local and federal officials, who argued over who was in charge of public safety. "We need a command here, a single command, a federal command ? I need to guarantee tranquility for all the people here."
Fox interrupted a civil protection official who was rattling off statistics about 100,000 food shipments that had been brought to the area. "I don't want stories. I want what's happening now, right now! I don't know if these deliveries ended up here, or if they're already in the stomachs of the people, but I don't see them here."
Government officials said that search and rescue teams have begun arriving at the offshore resorts of Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, left isolated by several feet of water and a storm surge pushed by Wilma. A few thousand people had remained on both islands during the storm, and initial reports said more than Isla Mujeres was still flooded. On Cozumel, the island's three cruise ship piers were seriously damaged, as were all 30 of its hotels, according to local officials.
By Monday afternoon, officials said most of the foreign tourists in the area had been, or were about to be, moved from Cancun. But that prediction and a pronouncement from federal highway officials that almost all of the Yucatan's roads were passable did not square with the reality of bottlenecks on major highways, where only large trucks and amphibious military vehicles could cross the impromptu lakes that had formed over many roadways.
In Valladolid, about 60 miles from Cancun, one tour company's buses were ferrying out some 300 people who reported dwindling food supplies and fresh water in the devastated Maya Riviera resort area.
The tourists reported overflowing toilets in Cancun's shelters and the spread of stomach ailments. Health officials warned that a prolonged power outage in the affected area will hamper efforts to kick-start sewage treatment and fresh water pumping facilities, worsening the threat of illness and disease carried by the region's ubiquitous mosquitoes.
Tourists escaping Cancun praised their Mexican hosts, some of whom had accompanied them to shelters and went to great lengths to make tourists as comfortable as possible.
"The Mexicans slept on the toilets, they slept on crates to give us space," said British tourist Steve Leak.
"We wouldn't be alive if not for them." |
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