How I Survived the Acapulco Flood in Complete Comfort

[Editor’s Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

I wish to start off this article by stating that many did not survive in complete comfort and still, to this moment, are not and my best wishes go out to them. But, I don’t want you to think that because I am almost totally fine that I don’t feel sad for those that aren’t. My own way of trying to help is to help my friends, family and employees as much as possible and to continue to spread the ideas that can help those prepare for times like these, and this is nothing compared to the coming collapse of The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI). So, I hope what I can tell you of this event will help you prepare for something much worse coming for most of the Western world.

THE STORM

For those unaware (and many are as any news from this region is mostly unknown or wildly mis-reported) a tropical storm began on Thursday here in Acapulco. I wrote “The Weekend Vigilante” on Friday evening from my usual weekend outpost, Mangos bar, and commented on how it was very rainy and even chilly (relatively to normal). What I didn’t know was that the heavy rain wouldn’t end until about four days later.

Tens of thousands of tourists (estimated at 40,000), mostly from Mexico City, had come to Acapulco for Mexico’s version of July 4^th, a celebration of independence from European colonialism. Normally on this date, the city of Acapulco is completely full of revelers, many shots are fired into the sky and plenty of tequila, whiskey, and cerveza is consumed. This year, however, the streets were nearly empty on Sunday as they had begun to turn into rivers and while the city was full of tourists not many were out celebrating, most sat in hotel rooms and hotel lobbies drinking and trying to enjoy themselves despite the deluge.

Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary even by Sunday other than a lot of rain, but that does happen in the “rainy season”, usually a few times per year when a tropical storm or small hurricane passes through (the last large hurricane here was nearly 20 years ago). But by Sunday evening it was becoming apparent that there were major problems.

The rain had caused mudslides blocking most of the major roads into and out of Acapulco and we then heard that the airport was underwater and, almost to add insult to injury, full of crocodiles! Apparently in the area near the airport, called Diamante, a very upscale area for the most part, an alligator farm had filled with water and dozens of alligators had floated out, and many were new inhabitants of the airport terminal.

THEN WE REALIZED THINGS WERE GETTING BAD

Things in town still weren’t too bad at that point. It was very wet but I continued on with my normal routine without much concern. However, then all the power, water, telephones (even mobile) and internet went offline.

I returned to my house to pick up my son and we stayed in our hotel for the night (Las Torres Gemelas Private Suites) because they still had power and we found one place where the internet was still working and my son and I worked from there.

By Monday all the utilities and Internet had returned at my house so we returned to my house and I just assumed that everything was going to be fine – since we had all our services restored.

Then my maid arrived and told me her house was underwater. I said to her, “You don’t need to be here working” but she replied that she was worried about my son. That is so typical of the people here… her house was practically destroyed and she still came to work saying that she was worried about myself and my son being here alone (more on that later).

Of course, I offered to help in any way I could including offering her and her daughter to stay with us but she told me she’ll be fine — again, very typical of the attitudes of the people here where almost nothing ever seems to bother them too much.

Then I found out that my wife who had been in Mexico City was driving back on Sunday and it got so bad that they had to stay in a small town outside of Acapulco called Chilpancingo. She appeared to have no communication but, somehow, she was able to relay messages through to her family and then to me to let me know she was okay but in a town with no power, water, telephones, or Internet.

The storm had appeared to have passed but it still had one last kick in it and the downpour returned.

News was slow to come by at first but it was slowly getting out that almost all the roads and bridges in the entire area were washed out or destroyed.

In Acapulco, all the bank machines were offline and no one could accept credit cards due to the phone problems. I did not have any cash for two days but luckily I have countless friends here who own bars and restaurants and they all told me just to pay them when I could, which turned out to be a few more days.

Upon finding out that their credit card machine (which had been working) stopped working I jokingly said to my anarcho-son, “Well, I guess we’ll have to wash dishes for a few hours.”

He didn’t realize I was joking, rolled up his sleeves and said, “I guess we have to do what we have to do,” and he walked into the kitchen in the back as the manager of the restaurant and I looked on with disbelief.

He came back and said: “They told me they don’t need me to wash dishes,” breaking us into laughter.

“It’s okay,” I told him, “We have many good friends in this city… we can pay later.”

WORD GETS OUT OF THE REAL DAMAGE AND SITUATION

Finally on Tuesday the storm mostly subsided and then word of the real situation began to get out. No flights in or out for at least a few more days and no ability to leave the area by road… and subsequently, no ability to bring in supplies.

Michael Bach, who works with us at TDV in Acapulco had heard before I did and he sent me an email to let me know he was at Wal-Mart trying to stock up on things given that it might be a while before fresh supplies could get in, and he wasn’t the only person who had the same idea. He spent five hours in line to buy what was left (all the bread and meat were gone) and by the end of the day Wal-Mart was practically empty as were all the other grocery stores.

I began to grow a bit more concerned but deliveries kept getting made throughout the day. Four large 20 liter bottles of water were delivered and my cook kept receiving food items. I asked how it is that most of Acapulco is out of these items yet we are still receiving them.

He told me, “your wife… she’s handling everything.”

My wife who was stranded in a town with no utilities and no means of communication (the phones and internet were out and I couldn’t contact her until Wednesday, four days with no communication) had been somehow arranging things like it was just another day.

That’s why I married her; she is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. No matter what the situation, she deals with it. By Tuesday I had driven around and made sure everyone I knew was okay because no one could communicate still. My daughter had been staying with her grandmother and I pulled up to their restaurant and they were completely fine.

“You have everything you need here?” I asked.

She winked, “no problem.” They’ve lived in this area for decades and have all the connections they need with the community. A lot of people here have lived for generations with not a lot of money and have seen it all, hurricanes, earthquakes, peso collapse, and they know how to survive.

The tens of thousands of people from Mexico City, though, were a different story. Trapped in Acapulco with no communication, no bank machines, no credit cards working they were becoming quite desperate. Many hotels allowed them to stay free of charge and then private enterprise came to the rescue. Aeromexico and Interjet began bringing in flight after flight to the re-opened and soggy airport to evacuate them, all free of charge.

The area near the airport was the hardest hit and by Wednesday people were beginning to get desperate and people began just taking whatever they could from places like Costco and Wal-Mart.

And finally, by late Wednesday some power, phone and internet had been restored where my wife was stranded and I finally found out the real story there.

CHILPANCINGO DESTROYED

She said that it had been horrific, apparently much worse than what happened here in Acapulco. She said many people had died from drowning and mudslides and for all intents and purposes the city is destroyed. She said she had spent the last few days helping people as it had been completely cut off from the outside and had no services. She was very angry that the government was diverting all their resources to Acapulco and ignoring Chilpancingo where things are exponentially worse.

Luckily, as of Wednesday evening, the road from Mexico City to Chilpancingo was reopened and even though Chilpancingo is only about an hour drive from Acapulco she is going to drive to Mexico City and then fly back to Acapulco tomorrow because the road from Chilpancingo to Acapulco is closed indefinitely. Tunnels are completely full of mud and all bridges have been destroyed.

As I write it had been a typical hot, sunny Acapulco day and almost the entire bay area where I live is almost totally back to normal. The beaches were cleaned by people very quickly and there was no major damage at all in this area. But as dusk fell incredibly dark clouds have moved in and rain has resumed, although at this point just lightly. A major storm appears to be moving across South East Mexico at the moment and is moving westward, if it continues westward to Acapulco and this entire region it could be absolutely devastating, especially to the poorer areas in the surrounding areas which have already been hit hard.

MORAL OF THE STORY

I think there is much to take from my experiences.

One of the biggest is the importance of a social network (and I don’t mean Facebook). With countless friends and family in the city we were able to get through with almost no major problems. The people who work in or own restaurants and bars that I have frequented for nearly ten years treat me like family and were happy to give me whatever I needed and know I am good to pay once payment systems are again up and running.

One bar manager even told me that he always has months worth of food and drinks in his house for situations like this and told me if things get really bad that if I need anything it isn’t a problem.

However that possible need also shows that I was not fully prepared for a disaster. Since we never have any problems here and things always get taken care of (usually by my wife) I never worried too much about being a “prepper”. And, this event shows that I am generally right. For a number of days while many people had a lot of problems we had the network to easily get by. But, I never like to depend on anyone and so I will be making some changes.

Here are some major points and some pass/fail marks:

• CASH/PRECIOUS METALS – FAIL: I often tell people to always make sure they have at least a few weeks of cash in the house and to also have precious metals for when banks/ATMs collapse, and they will. And, I normally do but in the last few months I’ve been away, unexpectedly, for weeks at a time and some fairly large expenses came up and I had told my wife to use the cash and the gold and silver coins for the expenses, with the plan to restock those items soon. I will be making a definite point to do that again as soon as possible. I also realized that I should really talk to the local businesses I frequent about accepting Bitcoin. While Internet was down for a while, which would have been a problem for Bitcoin, it is nice to have alternative payment options.
• FOOD – FAIL: I have also been slow on a plan I’ve had for a while to stock up on food items that can last for an extended period. I have moved three times in the last three years and used to have a lot stocked up but some of it had gone bad (I hadn’t bought the proper items) and some just got lost or even eaten along the way.
• POWER – FAIL: One of the most difficult things about a permanent traveler (PT) style lifestyle is that I rarely ever stay in one place (and definitely not the same house) for very long. This has its positives but one of the negatives is that it makes it hard to justify buying generators or other like items. If I knew I was going to stay in one place for long enough I would install a proper generator system
• TRANSPORTATION – COULD IMPROVE. We have a number of vehicles and all had plenty of gasoline but the one thing that would be a very nice to have option would be a sailboat. Being oceanside if an event that was really bad were to pass and there, like this, were no other transportation options, it would be very nice to have an option by which to escape and a sailboat is one of the best ways to do that.
• COMMUNICATION – COULD IMPROVE. When the power, phones (land and mobile) and internet all go out it definitely causes issues. Aside from buying everyone in the family a satellite phone that would be expensive and they’d likely never bring it with them anywhere there isn’t much you can do. However, as my wife showed, by having a large network of friends and family who can be counted on to pass messages along goes a long way.
• WATER – PASS: Water wasn’t an issue. We have large cisterns on the roof and usually plenty of large bottles of water in the house, not to mention a swimming pool if things got bad enough!
• SELF-DEFENCE – PASS: Arms also weren’t an issue. We have plenty of guns in the house if things get really bad. And my entire family are well-trained in boxing and martial arts, plus we have hundreds of similar style friends and family. It should also be pointed out that Acapulco still has a very real sense of community, something missing in a lot of Western cities and so the chances of a disaster turning into widespread, violent chaos in places like this is much less than, for example, Los Angeles.

I plan on making one of my permanent residences at Galt’s Gulch Chile and will work on some of the above items for that location. Another great thing about Galt’s Gulch is that almost all your neighbors will have all these items taken care of as they are well aware to prepare for emergency situations, and as I have shown, having a network of people around you can be the most important thing.

MAKE MONEY

To close, aside from all of these preparation items, the most important thing is to make money. Almost all of the most hard hit areas are very poor areas where people live in shacks on hillsides. Those with money live in well constructed homes and areas that are suitable to withstand major events. And, as you can see, Acapulco is getting the lion’s share of support in this region and it is the least devastated, that’s because the most money is here.

It’s just a fact of life, whether you like it or not. Make money and prepare for crisis situations as best as possible to ensure you and your loved ones can get through tough times as comfortably as possible.

Because this was just a large rain shower and it shows how quickly things can go offline. When the fiat currencies collapse and the whole world goes Cyprus, it’s going to be very bad. Mad Max bad in many areas. And the more people that are prepared and know this the better it will be for everybody.

The Dollar Vigilante is a free-market financial newsletter focused on covering all aspects of the ongoing financial collapse. The newsletter has news, information and analysis on investments for safety and for profit during the collapse including investments in gold, silver, energy and agriculture commodities and publicly traded stocks. As well, the newsletter covers other aspects including expatriation, both financially and physically and news and info on health, safety and other ways to survive the coming collapse of the US Dollar safely and comfortably. You can sign up to receive our FREE monthly newsletter, our Basic Newsletter ($15/month) or our Full Newsletter ($25/month) with specific stock recommendations and updates at our Subscriptions page on our website at DollarVigilante.com.