Acapulco shuts down amid fear of Hurricane Polo: ‘Three days not knowing what’s going to happen’

A large white cloud envelops the beach, the boardwalk, the palapas and the nightlife bars that earned Acapulco the nickname The Pearl of the Pacific. Deserted streets and closed shops along the famed Costera Miguel Alemán give the impression that something is about to happen. The white cloud brings rain, high surf and a wave of uncertainty that have inundated the city.

These are the effects of Hurricane Polo, which has been stalled since Tuesday off the coast of Guerrero after reaching Category 5, the highest level, in record time and later weakening to Category 4. Experts say the cyclone will not make landfall, but the locals — who still remember the effects of Hurricane Otis in 2023 — have thrown themselves into preparations “for whatever comes,” says Carolina Esquivel, a 43-year-old merchant with a business downtown.

Far from the luxury hotels and the sunbeds, Esquivel’s cellphone repair shop shutters at 1.30 pm, six hours earlier than usual. She fears both looting and the rising waters from the flood that formed in front of her workplace. “People haven’t come out in three days. Three days not knowing what’s going to happen,” she explains. “Everyone is sitting at home in fear,” she says. “We’ve been preparing for days — stocking beans, rice, eggs, whatever we can in case,” adds her neighbor from the flower shop. “Who’s going to come by now? There are no sales, but you still have to open,” she explains. Torn between the need to work and their fear, they agreed to open at least a few hours a day before taking shelter. Only major stores, banks and supermarkets remain open.

The Mexican government has also focused on prevention. Classes remain suspended for 500,000 students in the state of Guerrero, municipal administrative work has been halted, and more than 600 shelters have been set up that no one has used so far. The port remains closed to navigation. In addition, nearly 14,000 members of the Armed Forces across the country are on standby in the preventive phase of civil protection plans. In Acapulco, troops are on the streets and in shopping plazas, supervising and warning the population about the danger of Polo. “We have the necessary equipment to respond to an emergency,” the Navy said in a video shared on social media. So far, the local media reports no casualties from Polo, which has caused standing water, floods and some trees to fall.

Operations extend beyond the tourist area to the Costa Grande, Costa Chica, the mountain region and the sierra. In the capital, Chilpancingo, “it rains and then stops, it rains and then stops,” says Carlos Ruiz, a 43-year-old sunglasses vendor. In the last two days he has seen “many military personnel” passing through his city en route to the beaches or smaller towns “to make sure everything is okay,” he says, “but for now everything is normal.” That’s where “things are complicated,” he believes. “There” is the port. The hourlong drive that separates a partly cloudy, humid Chilpancingo from Acapulco, where the rain does not stop, reflects the change Ruiz describes.

Considered by the United States National Hurricane Center an “extremely dangerous” phenomenon, Polo on Wednesday began slowly moving away from Guerrero. But the depth, pressure and other technical terms mean little to Roberto Martínez, 27, who is trying to attract customers to an empty restaurant. “I just hope it calms down so we can get back to work as soon as possible,” he says. Here, money comes with tourism, and hurricanes scare away the few visitors who come in the low season.

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