Wilma Finally Leaves...

When we woke up Sunday morning (the 23nd), things had finally quieted down as Wilma moved off the Yucatan Peninsula and back into the Gulf of Mexico. For Cancun, that meant the cleanup could begin. Amanda and I had breakfast with Jose, Coral, and Ambar with a wonderful and tasty assortment of fresh fruit. Jose then asked me and Amanda if we would like to join him in a walk around the neighborhood. He wanted to see if any of his neighbors needed help cleaning up. Here are a few pictures of some of the damage in this neighborhood:
Jose and I helped a few people move some debris from the roads and their yards then eventually made our way back to the family's house to clean up there. Later that morning, Josefina came home after being at work for 3 days straight. She works at the Moon Palace resort in the communications (telephone) department. The Moon Palace is not on the small strip of land where most of the hotels are, so the workers were able to get home by bus using different roads. It was quite emotional when she came home with the girls running out to hug their mom with tears flowing all around. Jose explained to Josefina who we were and what we were doing in her house. She spoke English the best out of everyone in the family, so Amanda and I were able to communicate with her very easily. After Josefina changed clothes, the family wanted to go check on the laundromat they own and offered us the opportunity to go with them...with the hope that maybe we could get back to the hotel and get the rest of our luggage. We all piled into their car and slowly made our way toward the laundromat dodging downed trees and creeping across water-covered roadways. The laundromat was in very good condition with only a few puddles of water on the floor. From there, we made our way toward downtown Cancun. The damage was widespread and unbelievable! Many businesses had structural damage to the point you could see inside. Any trees still standing were stripped of all their leaves and bark. Here is a picture of one business we drove by with a gas station in the foreground. The gas station would normally have an awning, but it was no longer there:
This scene was repeated over and over again as we got closer to downtown Cancun. We came to the road that would lead us to the hotel zone, but it was blocked by police indicating it was still impassable. But all was not lost on our trip into town, we were able to finally get our U.S.-based calling card to work. Who gave us the insider tip? Josefina of course! Since she handles the telephones at her resort, she knew exactly how to get it to work. Amanda called her mom which really made both Amanda and her mom feel much better about our situation. I gave Steve a call to update him on what was taking place so he could pass it along to my family. We made our way back to their house and they prepared another wonderful meal. It didn't take long for us to get tired after the meal...and with the power still out, it gets very dark very quickly...so we went to bed for a rather quiet night of sleep. It's a good thing we got that sleep because Monday would turn out to be a rather busy day. That's ahead in the next installment...