Hurricane Norbert’s aftermath in Mazatlan

I went for a walk this morning and was amazed at the destruction on Playa Norte due to the high winds and surf from Hurricane Norbert. Norbert never even came close – it stayed West of Baja the entire time, but with Hurricane Marie passing by earlier between the two the power was magnified. People along our entire coastline are dealing with a lot of damage – Stone Island took a hit, the hotels in the Golden Zone suffered damage, and several beachfront houses have lost their patios and pools.

At the top of this post is a picture of some broken stairs and in the background the devastated Lupe’s Locos. Below is a damaged palapa restaurant. I have lots more photos here if you care to look.

I have a feeling over the next few days the extent of the damage will increase as engineers and contractors do their inspections. This morning the only palapa restaurant on the malecon able to open is Puerto Azul. All the rest are going to take a lot of work to repair. The water was still too high while I was walking to be able to make much of a start on the cleanup, but waiters and owners were doing what they could.

The seawall at the Pacifico Beer monument has broken and fallen away, as you can see above. Below is what little remains of the eight or so individual palapas at La Corriente.

I’m sure that the palapa restaurants will recover pretty quickly, the Mexican spirt is hard to keep down. I’ll do another post in a couple more weeks to let you know how things are progressing.

Weather

Triplets in Mazatlán

Hurricane Odile brushes past Mazatlán

More about Nancy

I'm Nancy, a US expat living in San Antonio Tlayacapan, Jalisco after 11 years in Mazatlán, México.

12 Comments

Terry
September 6, 2014

Nancy,
Thank you for posting these real time photos. I hope that the locals will be able restore their establishments soon, as tourist season is about to start.
Terry

Shannon Casey
September 7, 2014

My gosh, that is awful for all those waterfront businesses. It will take a lot of time and money to get up and running again. My heart goes out to them.

Diana
September 7, 2014

We actually own a home in Nuevo Mazatlan. Our Sea wall has been significantly
Destroyed!! It is amazing, how much damage we have incurred. Our
Next door neighbor lat his swimming pool and we are concerned
About ours!

Nancy
September 8, 2014

Terry, You’re welcome, the next day most of the palapas except La Corriente and Lupe’s were getting ready to open when I was down there mid-morning.

Shannon, They make repairs pretty quickly here, it is amazing sometimes.

Diana, I have seen a lot of pictures from Nuevo Mazatlan. The damage is truly heartbreaking. Patios, sea walls, one pool that I know of, and lots of walls all gone into the sea. Hopefully you and your neighbors will recover quickly from this disaster, you have our sympathy.

Diana
September 8, 2014

Well, last evening, I had a long conversation with my neighbor and the sea wall to the left is gone and on the right. Our stairs leading down to the beach have gone out to the ocean! Our next door neighbor had lost his front patio and Saturday, his pool!!! Our wonderful neighbor that is in our complex, made sure he got an architect right away and was able to save the middle portion of our sea wall and swimming pool! The devastation is truly heart breaking! We built our home 8 years ago and were really concerned that it might end up out at sea. Our one neighbor lost her entire front patio and now her sliding doors are up in the air and with a huge drop to the beach!! We were very lucky years ago, to retain a wonderful grounds keeper (Jose Pacheco) who speaks wonderful English and is such a blessing to all of us!! He has been at our complex 13 hour days, since last week, even on Sunday!! It was with his help and our neighbor that so far (fingers crossed) we will be able to retain what is left of the sea wall and rebuild. The Insurance assessor is coming out today and we shall see if all the money we have been paying, will be worth it! LOL We are still far more fortunate than some of our neighbors. Diana

Kim G
September 14, 2014

Hola Nancy!

Wow! Looks like Mazatlán was smacked but good. Is it my imagination, or did the beaches lose a LOT of sand? I seem to remember that Mazatlán had pretty wide beaches when we were there a few years ago.

Hopefully you all haven’t suffered any damage. And I’m praying that Odile heads out to sea.

Saludos,

Kim G
Boston, MA
Where usually every fall we get at least one hurricane scare. And where my friends then make fun of me for actually preparing for it.

Nancy
September 14, 2014

Hi Kim,

Tides are always higher in the summer but there was a lot of sand lost. We are quite nervous about Odile, she is now a Category 4. Even though she’s expected to come to land over Baja we expect a lot of wind and rain. Models show from 12-15 foot waves, which could hurt us pretty badly. I am spending the morning with the caulking gun and taping the windows we have that are prone to leaking. Fingers crossed.

Patti WA State
September 14, 2014

Thanks for the pictures Nancy. Hope you’ll keep us posted on Odie too. We stay at the Playa Escondida Condominiums each spring for a few weeks, so are quite concerned about all our friends there and the complexes near by.

Lynn Henderdon
September 15, 2014

Has anyone been north by Quintas Del Mar II or Costa Bonita? I’m wondering how they faired. Prayers for all in Mazatlan.

Thank you

Lynn

KAREN RIDENOUR
September 22, 2014

i would like someone to post pics of damage to costa de oro, please

Nancy
September 22, 2014

Karen, you might want to ask on one of the local message boards. I believe I saw some pics on Facebook a while back, a bit of their outside pool deck was damaged, but I can’t remember exactly.