Double Rainbow (hard to see in the cell phone picture) Taken in Nuevo Vallarta last Tuesday as the storm was clearing.
I was going through my web logs this morning, September 20th 2013, and noticed I was getting several visitors looking for information about storm damage here in Puerto Vallarta caused by a large storm that passed through a few days ago. That storm is up north in Sinaloa now and has done some damage there, and earlier in the week the same storm system caused a great deal of flooding in the southern coastal regions of Mexico which resulted in extensive property damage and, sadly, some loss of life. But here in Vallarta, there has been no notable harm… we had a night and day of fairly heavy rain, and that’s about it. The rivers are still up as they handle the runoff from the mountains, but I have heard of no flooding (besides all the usual suspects that flood any time there is any quantity of rain).
One of the nice things about Puerto Vallarta is its geography. With the Sierra Madre Mountains at its back and the protection of the Banderas Bay at it’s front, it is difficult for hurricanes or other large storms to hit the area directly… the geographic features cause weather patterns to divert either to the north or the south. Even Hurricane Kenna, which “hit” Vallarta in 2002, did not hit Vallarta directly, it actually came on shore well to the north of us in San Blas (where it did considerable damage). That’s not so say the glancing blow we took did not do any damage. The sea swell caused quite a bit of flooding and damage in the first two blocks near the ocean, but the rest of vallarta was relatively untouched… reports of massive damage at the time were largely hype designed to sell newspapers.
So if you have properties or loved ones in Vallarta, rest assured there was no real damage in Vallarta this week (unless you happen to have a leaky roof!).
Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were affected by recent storms outside of Vallarta… if you are in town now, I urge you to find one of the several DIF collection stations around town collecting food and supplies to help those in need and make a donation.