Fox Criticizes Mexican Response To Hurricane As Evacutation Continues

VALLDOLID, Mexico — Tempers shortened Monday in battered Cancun as anxious Mexicans began realizing the true extent of damage delivered by Hurricane Wilma during its weekend pass over the Yucatan peninsula.

Wilma's 120 mph winds and 60 inches of rain destroyed or damaged as much as 80 percent of the resort area's hotel rooms. An exodus of the able continued, as the U.S. embassy enlisted dozens of vehicles to help evacuate American tourists who had spent three nights without electricity and little food and water.

Meanwhile, Mexican federal officials, while abundant in numbers and starting to relay relief supplies to Cancun, reported some trouble deciding who was in charge of security and which of the region's many post-hurricane needs should be attended to first.

"I want the command operating at 100 percent, now!" barked President Vicente Fox, inspecting the hurricane strike zone for a second day. The eruption came during a meeting of local and federal officials, who argued over who was in charge of public safety. "We need a command here, a single command, a federal command. I need to guarantee tranquility for all the people here."

Fox interrupted a civil protection official who was rattling off statistics about 100,000 food shipments that had been brought to the area. "I don't want stories. I want what's happening now, right now. I don't know if these deliveries ended up here, or if they're already in the stomachs of the people, but I don't see them here."

Mexican officials said that search and rescue teams have begun arriving at the offshore resorts of Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, left isolated by several feet of water and a storm surge pushed by Wilma. A few thousand people had remained on both islands during the storm, and initial reports said more than Isla Mujeres was still flooded. On Cozumel, the island's three cruise ship piers were seriously damaged, as were all 30 of its hotels, according to local officials.

Onshore, more than half of the 50,000 hotel rooms along the Maya Riviera coast were damaged or destroyed, according to hotel industry officials. Federal officials, who had been gloating of Mexico's rising tourism revenues -– expected to exceed $10 billion this year –- predict it will be March of next year before Cancun is fully operating again.

Fox told reporters he thought tourists could start returning by December and warned business owners not to raise prices or fire employees in the wake of the storm.

"Everyone will keep earning a salary and everyone will work on the reconstruction," fox said.

Despite all the physical damage, Mexican officials breathed a sigh of relief that the human toll remained minimal. At least 12 people died during the storm. Four bodies found floating off of Cozumel are thought to be Cuban refugees whose escape raft was swallowed by Wilma's storm surge.

By Monday afternoon, Mexican officials said most of the foreign tourists in the area had been, or were about to be, moved from Cancun. But that prediction -– and a pronouncement from federal highway officials that almost all of the Yucatan's roads were passable –- did not square with the reality of bottlenecks on major highways, where only large trucks and amphibious military vehicles could cross the impromptu lakes that had formed over many roadways.

In Valldolid, about 60 miles from Cancun, one tour company's buses were ferrying out some 300 people who reported dwindling food supplies and fresh water in the devastated Maya Riviera resort area.

"There are a lot of Yanks still [there,]" said British tourist Toni McNalley, aboard a bus that had left Cancun early Monday. "There are people there with children who really need to get out ... British, American, Chinese. The babies were getting sick. There's a bug going around in there and the children were getting it."

The tourists reported overflowing toilets in Cancun's shelters and the spread of stomach ailments. Mexican health officials warned that a prolonged power outage in the affected area will hamper efforts to kick-start sewage treatment and fresh water pumping facilities, worsening the threat of illness and disease carried by the region's ubiquitous mosquitoes.

Tourists escaping Cancun praised their Mexican hosts, some of whom had accompanied them to shelters and went to great lengths to make tourists as comfortable as possible.

"The Mexicans slept on the toilets, they slept on crates to give us space," said British tourist Steve Leak. "We wouldn't be alive if not for them."

The Wilma evacuees were just glad to going home after the harrowing weekend.

"Windows were coming in. We could have had fatalities. .. A window that must have been 7 feet by 7 feet was pushed in from behind the shutters," said Jeff Stone of Manchester, England, resting at a gas station in Valldolid while on his way to Merida and a flight back home. "There was screaming and breaking glass. ... We've got a major catastrophe."

The chaos did not stop some tourists from holding true to their paid-for itineraries, for fear of incurring extra charges from tour operators or airlines for altered travel plans.

Gail Ginovbi, of Boca Raton, Fla., had gone from Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, to Merida. But Wilma, wreaking havoc in Florida, prevented her return on Monday. She said she would probably try returning from Cancun to avoid the extra fees.

Before Wilma hit them in Cancun, Ginovbi said, her hotel's staff had said there was not much cause for concern. But being from Florida, Ginovbi said, she and her friend knew about hurricanes and got out early. But some of the Europeans, she added, appeared blasé as the hurricane arrived.

"Will somebody go see if those people are still up in their rooms?" she asked.