Preparing for Patricia

Hurricane Patricia was on her way to us and murmurs of her arrival started about Tuesday last week.  Admittedly, were  nonchalant about her in the beginning.   This year marks our 7th Hurricane Season in the Bahia de Banderas.  Each season begins with a storm whose name starts with the letter A, and they work their way down the alphabet to the last storm of the season.  Not all named storms turn into hurricanes.  We are far from "seasoned" but "P" is the 16th letter of the alphabet, meaning that this year alone, 15 storms had already formed, with the potential to turn into a hurricane and 15 storms had passed us by.

By Thursday, however, the murmur had turned into enough talk to cause us to take precautionary measures around the house.  Basically, this meant stripping our walls, inside and out, of any and all decor and hauling all our outdoor furniture into indoor shelter and locking it up.  We also put a couple of days worth of food and water in the room with the smallest windows, thereby limiting our exposure to flying glass, should the storm be strong enough to break windows.

Kevin reads the news daily on his computer.  I am not a big watcher of news, preferring to worry about what is going on in my backyard "now" rather than being concerned about what is happening everywhere else in the world.  News of Patricias' impending arrival, however, was unavoidable!  She was everywhere and would soon be in my back yard.   Countless friends, in person, by phone, email and on Facebook brought reality crashing down upon me.   Something hugely frightening was headed our way.

So, I took a second look at what we had on hand.  Really, under normal circumstances, as with most Canadian households, we could easily survive for several days on just what was in our fridge.  But,  if the power went out, all that would quickly spoil and we would be forced to live for who knows how long on half a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread.

Which is why Friday morning found us scrambling to get more last minute stuff taken care of.  Kevin got into line at the gas station to top up the tank and then went to the water store for an additional 20 litres of water.  I went to Chedraui for extra candles and packages of ready to eat tuna and beans.  Ever the optimist, I also bought some deli meats because even if we did loose power, the food could be transferred to coolers.

The line at the gas station was bad enough, but much quicker than the line at the grocery store.  The clerks were doing their best but when everyone in the bay decides to stock up at the same time, things do slow down.  For the most part, in spite of the crush, people were considerate, polite and in good humour and the hour I stood in line waiting to pay passed without incident.

We came home and started the BBQ, because the chicken we had planned to have for dinner still needed to be cooked.    While that was happening, on the advice of friends, I did a few last minute things I never would've thought of:  pet food, briquets, matches and personal documents were all put into zip lock baggies and stowed for safe keeping.  In all, we felt we were as prepared as we could be so we waited.

As predicted, Patricia, a category 5 Hurricane hit land south of the Sierra Madre mountains and did a lot of damage.   Mexican authorities managed to ignore all the CNN hype and concentrated their evacuation efforts in the areas where National Hurricane Centre (NOA) was predicting landfall.  They nailed it, and it is my understanding that no lives were lost in spite of (for me) unimaginable damage.  

As the photos show, the devastation wrought by Patricia was nothing that I could have prepared for.  If asked to evacuate, we may have gone to the shelter set up at the university, or we may have driven to Guadalajara.  For the future, we will remember that evacuating to Guadalajara may be a poor choice.  There are videos on line showing floodwaters pushing loaded busses down the street.

All that water has to go somewhere and within 24 hours it had travelled down the Ameca River and arrived here.  When we cross the bridge, the Ameca normally takes an eye blink to pass.  A friend sent a video Saturday, and it took a  full 2 minutes to cross the flooded area.  Jarretaderas was evacuated on Saturday,  but people were back in their homes on Sunday.  Again, a masterful job by civil authorities doing what needed to be done when it needed doing.


The good people of Vallarta and area are very aware of just how lucky we were with this storm and have rallied like no one else can rally to provide food and water and volunteers to the centres who need help as they start cleanup from the storm.    Our local Starbucks is the drop point in Nuevo for donations of food and water and there are several on line sites where monetary donations have also been made.   The positive from this is that our community as a whole has rallied to help with the aftermath,  which can only be a good thing.

Many thanks to Mary Pitrowsky and Stephy Finch along with AF News? for photos used in this blog.

Good things come from dirty laundry, Part 2

June 22, 2011 - I am sitting on our balcony at Casa Madera watching the rain drop from the sky.  It is intense for our first real rain of the season.  Rain.  Never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do here.  It probably has something to do with the fact that it is still 26 degrees and the water falling is warm not cold like it is in Canada. 

When it comes like this it is nice.  However yesterday we were on a hurricane watch as Hurricane Beatriz was working her way up the Mexican coast and while it would most likely not hit us directly we would probably get tropical storm winds and lots and lots of rain.  Beatriz though was just like the latest Canadian political landscape, it took a straight left turn and wandered out into the ocean.

Hurricanes.  Never had to worry about hurricanes in Edmonton however if you want warm weather you take the little side extras that comes with it.

Our first experience with a hurricane like event was in September 2009 and it came from the most unlikely source.....

September 2009 - We had made the deal on the house that was to become Casa Madera and were patiently waiting for it to close.  There were many delays but we were told don't worry it will close, we just don't know when. 

We had told Mary and Lore about the house purchase prior to returning to Canada for a vacation at the end of July.  They were very excited for us.   They were well aware of what we had in the condo and it was not going to go far in a 3000 square foot house.  It was then that they suggested we should all go to Guadalajara to shop for items for the house.

This was a great idea.  Heather and I always wanted to go to Guadalajara but had not been able to fit it in yet.  So we agreed that when returned from Canada we would set it up for the end of September after my kids had returned home (they were coming back with us for a vacation).

We returned and the dates were set.  We would leave Thursday morning on the midnight bus so we could hit the market in Tonala which runs Thursdays and Sundays.  We would stay at Mary's parents house.  Ok, this will be interesting but really who better to haul you around a city of 8,000,000 people than a couple of people who lived there!

To do this though we would have to get over our fear of being on the highway at night.  The one main rule we had always been told was to never, ever drive at night.  The roads are narrow, twisty and there is always the possibility of running into a cow as they sometimes graze on the side of the highways.  However, it made the most sense to do this so we said ok.

On the day we were to leave Mary said she would come by the condo and pick us up around 8:00 pm.  From our condo we went over to her friends Carlos and Bertha's house Bertha was determined to feed us and feed us she did.  Tacos dorado (deep-fried with potatoes, yummy), beans, rice, guacamole, it was endless and very, very good.

After she filled us with food we were off to the bus depot where we purchased tickets to Guadalajara which included a snack on board.  In minutes we were on the bus and on our way.  A big adventure for Heather and I who really did not know what to expect.  Mary and Lore were in total control.

The bus ride was non eventful.  There was a movie if you wanted to watch but I was more interested in trying to sleep.  Sleep, now that would have been nice.  I don't sleep well in moving vehicles, never have but I did manage to catch an hour of shut-eye on the 4 hour trip.

We rolled into Guadalajara at 4:00 am and took a cab to Mary's parents house.  It was 4:45 am and we were greeted by Mary's mother who had the biggest grin on her  face for someone who was awakened at this ungodly hour to let her daughter, her daughter's best friend and two middle-aged deer in the headlights white people into her house.  After the introductions we were shown to our bedroom and laid down to try to get a little sleep before the big shopping day.

We were up at 7:30 and went downstairs to actually say hello.  Or try.  We spoke very little spanish at this point and they spoke no english so we did what we could.  While we were talking I noticed in the corner of the living room there was a mountain made of Papaya's.  No one offered any explanation for them being there and we did not ask as we were just trying to fit in.

At that point Mary's mother, her sister Maggie, and Maggie's son were up.  Then two of the largest men I had ever seen walked into the living room.  Mary's brothers, Fernando and Victor.  Identical twins, great.  I will have enough problems getting know everybody's name without dealing with identical twins! 

Victor and Fernando started loading the papaya's into the back of their pick up.  Once loaded they were off and as far as we could tell were selling them door to door for 10 pesos each. 

Then more people came out of the back of the house.  Where were they all coming from?  This house is huge.  It turned out that 3 families were living in the house though we found out later that one was moving out on the weekend to their own apartment.

Heather and I were suffering from severe culture shock.   We were definitely fish out of water and were really never sure what was going to happen next. 

Breakfast, that's what happened next.  Papaya, now there was a surprise.  I was never a big fan of papaya but this was really good and we enjoyed it thoroughly.  Full of papaya we picked up our stuff and headed out to catch the bus to Tonala.