Hurricane Patricia....

It just wouldn't be right to survive the excitement of the most powerful hurricane to hit the west coast of Mexico and then not write a post on it. So here we are.... we had a bit of warning that Hurricane Patricia was on the way even though it formed into a huge powerful storm in only a few days. Tuesday morning was the initial warning and it suggested that a light tropical storm had formed off the coast of Acapulco. In just a couple of days it quickly grew to Hurricane Patricia, Category 5+, and then hit the Mexico coast just south of PV on Friday evening, October 23, 2015.

In PV, the day leading up to the storm felt like typical Vancouver weather where it was gray cloud cover with a steady light rain. The storm hit the coast at about 6:15 pm between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta and was ferocious. We are so glad that it took a sharp turn and slammed into the coast before it crept up to PV, although we do feel bad for those poor souls who had to endure the full onslaught...

We were able to let our family and friends know via Facebook that it was coming so they could enjoy being worried along with us the whole time.....the media was also helpful in this regard as they kept focusing on and mentioning PV rather than where the actual real damage occurred. Our TV and the internet stopped functioning at about 1:30 in the afternoon before the storm hit. We were not able to communicate with anyone, nor get any updates ourselves, so I am sure they were all worried when the news agencies / reports came out about just how bad it really was....

Our new friends Joe and Yvonne had to vacate their place with no notice as it was on low ground close to the beach and storm surges would have an impact on their home. They came to stay with us during the storm as our apartment is about 8 stories above sea level. They were wonderful guests and we even managed to get them coffee in the morning along with breakfast cereal supplemented by the dried fruit / nut medley that they brought with them...awesome! I wish I had some eggs and orange juice to offer them. Hopefully we can make up for it with some great tequila down the road a bit...

The storm came and went in a short period of time and actually had little effect on PV. I am sure that the mountains around Banderas Bay had something to do with that and also Jenny's and Christine's reminders to me to put that factoid on my spread sheet.... - yaaaaaaaay for my kids! Some streets were a bit flooded, local rivers and streams were gorged with flood water and some beaches took a bit of pounding but most things returned to “normal” in just one day. The outflow of the rivers into Banderas Bay was a brown soup and made the beaches a bit unsavoury looking - I suppose that's to be expected when a foot of rain falls in 24 hours.

Whew! :-)

We know our family and friends were very worried so I won't make light of that here - it's hard to be 3000+ miles away and not be able to do anything and have no information about our safety. Thank you to all of you who were hoping and praying for a good outcome - I am sure it helped - it made us feel good too. :-)