Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico – On Friday, Jalisco State Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez sent a declaration of emergency to Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior, citing 18 municipalities in the North Coast, South Coast and Western Highlands regions that suffered damages caused by Hurricane Nora. The damages are estimated to exceed 350 million pesos, at least 150 million of which are in Puerto Vallarta.
The other 17 municipalities established in the document are: Cabo Corrientes, Tomatlán, La Huerta, Cihuatlán, Autlán de Navarro, Casimiro Castillo, El Grullo, Talpa de Allende, Cuautitlán de García Barragán, Mascota, San Gabriel, Teocuitatlán de Corona, Santa María del Oro, Atoyac, Atenguillo, Villa Purificación and Mixtlán.
“We are quantifying the damages in a preliminary way at 350 million pesos and to that we would still have to add other factors, such as damages to businesses in these municipalities, but 350 million pesos is a figure that exceeds the response capacity of the State government and of course of the municipalities that do not have a single peso,” Alfaro Ramírez pointed out.
He added that the subsidy for damages that different natural disasters have left in recent months has been done without the help of the Federation, however, he explained that the effects of Nora exceed the financial capacity to meet the needs of citizens, their homes, shops, crops and communication routes.
The president visited Puerto Vallarta on Friday to attend to the requests of the victims, reiterating that the municipalities will not be left alone. It was in Puerto Vallarta where he specified that in the next two weeks it will be supported with resources from the State Fund for Natural Disasters (FOEDEN).
“We are going to continue working without pretexts to help people recover what they lost, to rebuild the infrastructure that was damaged. We are aware that it is a priority task and of course we will have to make budget adjustments to be able to allocate resources from other places to address this, which is truly an emergency,” he said.
