View From Casita Colibrí

According to reports, Hurricane Agatha is the strongest to make landfall along Mexico’s Pacific coast in May since record keeping began in 1949. As of tonight, Oaxaca’s governor said there have been ten deaths and twenty are missing, mostly due to flooding on the coast and mudslides in the mountains. Fortunately, friends living on the coast have marked themselves safe on social media. However, given the images and video I’ve seen posted on Facebook, Twitter, and news websites, the devastation is great and much help will be needed to clean up and rebuild.

Here in the capital city of Oaxaca, up and over the mountains from where the hurricane made landfall, we had steady rain yesterday and today we had a couple of episodes of torrential downpours. In Barrio de Jalatlaco we haven’t been hit with gale force winds, our cobblestone streets haven’t become rushing rivers, and we’ve only experienced intermittent power outages. And, as I write, the Guerreros de Oaxaca baseball game is being played at Estadio Eduardo Vasconcelos — I can hear the chants and cheers from the above rooftop.