As Hurricane Emily roared through Cancun recently, two Danville families hunkered down in their rooms in a luxury resort.
“We looked out the window and it was like watching a CNN report of a typhoon in Thailand,” reported Cindy Schmid. “Coconut trees bending, coconuts flying, hearing things breaking, doors banging. It was really frightening. It was even scary to look out the window – it felt like something was going to come through at any minute.”
The violent storm continued until 6 the next morning. “All night long we could hear banging and whistling,” said Schmid. “I slept from about 4 to 6, when it started mellowing out.”
The adventure had begun as a fantastic summer vacation for the two families at the Moon Palace, an all-inclusive luxury resort secluded on 2 miles of beach just south of Cancun Island. The Schmid family – Cindy, husband Dan, and her children Thomas Murray, 12, and Sarah Murray, 10 – had vacationed many times before with the Dunns – Cathy, Mike and their children Danielle, 12, and Ryan, 10.
The first four days lived up to their expectations, as they climbed the Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza, went parasailing, and enjoyed the hotel’s extensive amenities. The 2,103-room resort has two sprawling swimming pools, golf, tennis and its own sports marina, and 80 percent of the accommodations have an ocean view.
“On Thursday (July 14), we kind of caught wind from a family that had just checked in that Hurricane Emily had hit Jamaica,” recalled Cindy Schmid, which interested her because she and Dan had just been there for a conference two months before. “Then they said it was possibly coming to the Yucatan peninsula.”
Wanting to know their options, the families called the airlines and found that flights out were completely booked. “We said, ‘That takes care of that option. Let’s have another piña colada,'” said Schmid, with a laugh.
“By Friday we could feel the tension in the lobby,” she said, noting that the guests were mostly American, British and Mexican. “Everyone was talking about it and getting radar printouts. They kept giving us updates and said it could turn in any direction.”
She said it was difficult to get information, so they called her parents in Stockton. “My dad is a computer whiz. And we said, ‘What is the Internet saying?’ He said, ‘Honey, right now it’s coming right at Cancun at 250 miles an hour.'”
Hurricane Emily started as a category-four hurricane, on a scale of five, and had already destroyed hundreds of homes on the island of Granada as well as Jamaica, causing half a dozen deaths. The Mexican government declared a state of emergency throughout the entire Yucatan Peninsula. It turned out that some 30,000 tourists were moved from Cancun to temporary shelters; 70,000-80,000 throughout the state were moved to community shelters, hotel ballrooms and schools, away from the hurricane path.
Cindy’s father started searching for a place for them to stay further inland but they realized that the solid Moon Palace was probably the safest place around since evacuees were being brought there from other hotels.
“Over 2,000 people were brought in,” said Schmid. “They were put in the convention room off the lobby area, and to another area like a convention center. They put a huge wide-screen TV in there with movies and food.” The staff placed steel shutters over the lobby windows.
The Danville families requested rooms at the back of the hotel and were moved away from their ocean views.
“By Saturday at 4 o’clock the Mexican government closed every single liquor store and they wouldn’t serve any alcohol from 5 o’clock on,” said Schmid. “They were coming by and locking everybody’s mini bar.”
In their new rooms, the families crisscrossed tape on their windows so the glass would not shatter inside and pulled rollaway beds up to them. They were told if the windows started breaking and glass was flying, they should move into their bathrooms and stay in the large showers. Cindy said they moved chairs into their shower in anticipation but it never came to that. They also stocked up on candles, water and fun food for the children to add an element of adventure to the nerve-wracking night.
The hotel served one large meal at 4 p.m. Sunday, then everyone went to their rooms at 5 p.m. to await Emily’s arrival, which was predicted for 8.
“By 5 p.m. we looked out the window and could see the winds churning up, and it was getting dark,” said Schmid. “Walking outside of the room, the wind was pushing our bodies back. By 8 o’clock we were all so scared.”
Cathy Dunn said the anticipation was the worst part. “Once we were in the storm, we could see it would be OK,” she said. “We could see the building was strong enough.”
The next morning everyone left their hotel rooms early to check out the damage, said Schmid. “Trees were broken like toothpicks,” she said. Each one of the thick poles that had held the beach cabanas was split.
“It was really great just to see how people came together, hugging each other,” said Schmid. “The neat thing in tragedy is to see how people come together.”
Her husband’s secretary was able to get them a flight out on Monday, although they had to race to the airport to catch their plane.
“We talked to people at the airport who ended up staying in a brothel, with 21 people in one room,” said Dunn.
She said her family felt blessed to be so well protected in the hurricane. “It could have been so much worse,” she said. “We felt God was watching over us.” Her children had already felt blessed two days before when they had visited Chichen Itza and seen people living in makeshift homes.
“We spent most of the evening in our rooms, playing games and praying intermittently,” Dunn said.
She said she had pushed for the trip to Mexico rather than another vacation in Hawaii. “We go to Hawaii all the time. I said, ‘We’re not going again until we see something else. There’s a lot of world out there,'” she said.
“It was an adventure,” she concluded. “How often are we going to go through a hurricane?”
