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ACAPULCO, Mexico — As the winds grew more insistent and the waves jerked his boat, Demetrio Felipe made a last phone call to his wife at home. He urged her to close the windows and stay inside.
The ocean was getting ugly, the yacht captain told her. He and his crew were going to ride out the storm, guarding the vessel as they always did.
But what they initially thought was a tropical storm strengthened quickly to a Category 5 hurricane, with 165-mph winds and surging waters that cleared a path of destruction toward the naval base where Felipe’s boat was anchored.
His family hasn’t seen or heard from him since.
In the week after Hurricane Otis slammed into Acapulco, Felipe’s 22-year-old daughter searched through hospitals, examined the bodies that washed onto the beach, pleaded with authorities for answers. Running out of options, Abril Felipe Morales hitchhiked here, to the yacht harbor where her father often anchored, and asked his fellow sailors for help.
“No one is looking for him,” she told them through tears.
Felipe, a 48-year-old father of four, is one of dozens of people still missing after Otis caught this Pacific Coast resort by surprise. It grew from a tropical storm to Category 5 in 12 hours — a record leap for the region. Hundreds of sailors, captains and fishers were unprepared.
“They were all in the port, anchored and ready to receive a Category 3 hurricane,” said Alejandro Martínez Sidney, president of the National Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Services in Acapulco. “They couldn’t have imagined the force.”
Hurricane Otis death toll rises to 45; dozens still missing
Authorities have identified 33 vessels at the bottom of Acapulco Bay, Navy Secretary José Rafael Ojeda has reported, and are working to raise them to the surface. At least 46 people are dead and 58 missing, Guerrero Gov. Evelyn Salgado said Wednesday.
But local officials say the number lost at sea could be much higher. A fleet of 480 public tourist boats was wiped out, Martínez said, and his organization has counted about 120 dead or missing. The chamber has found about 20 bodies washed up onto the beach or by the docks. One sailor reported finding 10 bodies floating in the ocean 10 miles from Acapulco, Martínez said.
Mike O’Hara Cortez, 36, rode out the hurricane alone on a yacht. For three hours, he battled 20-foot waves and winds that threatened to blow him off the boat, running a pump to keep water from flooding it. Wedged beside a large concrete block in the Acapulco marina, he somehow avoided smashing the vessel onto the rocks. Friends in nearby vessels jumped into the churning water to try to escape. Others crashed up against the docks or went down with their boats.
When the winds eased and the waves died down before dawn, the waters around Cortez were empty.
“I don’t see anyone,” he told Martínez in a WhatsApp voice memo. “Thank God, I’m all right, safe and sound.”
Cortez estimates that 30 to 40 of his friends are dead or missing. Some drowned. One was found on the rocks with a shark bite.
One man survived floating at sea, but his wife and two children — who were also on his boat — died.
Many of the sailors, Felipe and his two crewmates among them, stayed on their vessels out of a sense of duty to protect them from the storm, family members said.
At least 27 dead after Hurricane Otis batters Acapulco
After the hurricane had passed, Felipe’s 45-year-old wife, Iracema Morales Vargas, and his daughters stepped through debris and over fallen palm trees to reach the bay and begin their search for him. At the marina, they saw bodies on the ground, Abril Felipe said. None was her father.
They ran into some of his friends, Morales said. One said he saw his boat, Sereno (Serene), near La Roqueta island. It was, the man said, “unrecognizable.”
One of Felipe’s crewmates showed up at his home asking for him. The night of the hurricane, he told the family, the men jumped into the ocean with life vests. It was pitch-black. The survivor said he washed ashore about eight miles from the yacht’s last known location. He wanted to know whether Felipe had made it home. (The third crew member is also missing.)
Felipe’s wife and children have searched for him from the naval base to the coastal towns of Coyuca and Pie de la Cuesta. The family heard rumors he may have been found injured at sea, so they searched every hospital in Acapulco and nearby Chilpancingo.
Morales traveled to Mexico City to search the hospitals there, in case he had been airlifted to the city.
“We’ve searched for him by sea, land, in hospitals … but we haven’t been able to find him,” Morales said. “Now we can only wait.”
Hurricane Otis produced 205 mph gust, among strongest ever measured
Abril Felipe’s partner, Jorge Jiménez, was also on the water the night of the hurricane. As the storm picked up, he said, he jumped off his vessel and managed to swim to a dock and sheltered in a bathroom. He spent the night fearing for his life.
On Tuesday, the couple walked and hitchhiked in the late-morning heat from their home across town to the Acapulco marina where her father worked. Abril Felipe, a nursing student, wore a high ponytail with a wide bow and a backpack shaped like a teddy bear. She carried an umbrella to protect her from the scorching tropical sun.
The marina has become a gathering place for sailors who are helping one another find friends lost at sea. When Abril Felipe and Jiménez arrived Tuesday, her dad’s Chevrolet truck was still parked there.
A National Guard member guarded the site with a rifle. Two volunteers here in recent days helped search for people believed to be missing at sea. Convinced that there were more bodies in the water than the government’s official tally, they traveled five miles out. They’ve since run out of fuel.
“We will keep on the fight,” said Andrés Abelino Zárate, 41. “I feel helpless.”
A sailor gathered names and photographs of the missing to pass to authorities and journalists.
Abril Felipe shared a photo of her father. A few others stopped by, leaving their loved ones’ details and asking for news.
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That’s one effort of several. WhatsApp groups have been flooded with photographs of missing relatives. On Monday, family members gathered on Acapulco’s iconic Miguel Alemán coastal strip carrying posters with the names of the missing and their vessels.
Abril Felipe wasn’t able to make it that day — with power and cellphone reception diminished by the storm, she didn’t hear about it in time. She returned on Tuesday, hoping to find other family members of missing sailors, but no one else showed up.
“We are out of ideas,” she said. “We don’t know where else to look.”
Schmidt reported from Bogotá, Colombia. Diana Durán contributed to this report.