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Hurricane Wilma

Stranded couples endure chaos, cherish kindness

For two Spring Hill couples, Hurricane Wilma turned their vacations in Cancun, Mexico, into survival exercises.

By BETH N. GRAY
Published November 6, 2005

	[Times photo: Edmund Fountain]
	Liz Casner of Spring Hill displays some belongings she and her husband brought back from Cancun. There for a conference when Hurricane Wilma hit, the couple were stranded and their belongings damaged. Casner stores the items in the garage, worried about insects and mold. "We're afraid to bring the rest of the stuff in," she said.

SPRING HILL - The Mexico Tourism Board advertises Cancun as a "Caribbean paradise."

But for two Hernando County couples, their time in the popular Yucatan vacation spot during and after Hurricane Wilma was more like Hades.

Liz and Michael Casner and Tony and Anne Cuomo, all of Spring Hill, returned home recently with tales of chandeliers falling from the ceilings of posh resorts, windows blowing out, rain whirling in and ceilings caving when the storm lashed the coastline Oct. 21 and 22.

There was no electricity for days, stopped-up toilets, backed-up sewage, meager food, little potable water and medications depleted over a spate of days when the visitors expected to be back at home.

That said, they had high praise for resort employees and local residents who, though they had lost everything to the Category 5 hurricane, came to the aid of tens of thousands of stranded tourists.

Their praise didn't extend to U.S. officials, however.

"We were almost killed, and the government left us all alone," said Liz Casner, 36, who was staying with her husband, 37, at the five-star Iberostar Paraiso Beach Hotel, attending her company's convention. After the storm abated, she said, an officer from the U.S. Consulate in Mexico City showed up and told them they were on their own.

"There were riots in the streets. People were being stabbed for cookies. U.S. guards were behind an iron fence; not us," Casner fumed.

They saw military helicopters in the sky from Spain, the United Kingdom, Greece, France and Scotland, all coming to rescue their countrymen. "The only ones left were the Americans," Casner said.

When the Casners, who had arrived in Mexico on Oct. 15, finally landed on American soil in the wee hours of Oct. 29 at Tampa International Airport, she said they watched news reports stating that the U.S. military was in Cancun.

"They weren't," she said.

The resort's guests were evacuated to a convention center, where they slept on chairs, she said. Two days later, that roof succumbed and they were bused back to the devastated resort during the height of the storm.

Liz Casner had won her trip to Cancun as a reward for being the top independent distributor in the country for Athena's, a Rhode Island company that markets pampering products such as aroma therapies and massage lotions.

Tony and Anne Cuomo, 73 and 69, respectively, had arrived in Cancun on Oct. 15 and were vacationing as they have for 15 years in their time-share condo at the Royal Mayan. The Timber Pines couple had a more positive experience with post-hurricane aid, albeit not from the United States.

They and 430 others from the condo - 95 percent American, Tony Cuomo estimated - had been evacuated by the resort management to a walled school compound inland at Cancun City.

Housed 28 to a classroom, the tourists were provided with bottled water, cartons of soda crackers and two cans of tuna each, but no can opener. One of the refugees opened his Swiss army knife for the chore.

When the wind and rain increased, Cuomo said, the Mexican army, or maybe police, people in uniform, anyhow, brought in extra blankets and bags of oranges.

"But the most wonderful thing, ... on Saturday afternoon we heard some commotion. There were neighborhood people, women carrying big pots of soup with pasta in it, Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons, hot coffee.

"We tried to give them money, but they wouldn't take a dime.

"They came with three meals a day. Their homes were destroyed, their roofs were off, their walls were down. They were cooking on Sterno cans and barbecues.

"And then they came with special food they would only give to the children: hot dogs, applesauce, things kids would eat."

The locals also made sure the evacuees were safe, Cuomo said.

"We heard that walls were blown on the jail, so all the prisoners escaped. Saturday night, men in the neighborhood formed a vigilante committee, armed themselves with clubs, and they patrolled our compound all night, so we wouldn't be harmed," he said.

At the Iberostar hotel, Liz Casner said the staff did its best, operating just one restaurant to conserve energy. Only breakfast and lunch were served so workers wouldn't have to go home after dark. Maids left barrels of water in stairwells for people to use.

Attempts to get out by plane took days, even though airlines set up satellite offices to attend to travelers, said Tony Cuomo. Mexicana Airlines, he said, lost lists of passengers needing to return home for medical reasons. Only 600 people a day were getting out.

The Cuomos finally got a flight to Mexico City, then to Chicago, on Oct. 28.

"We'd go anywhere," Cuomo said.

"I'll pay," he told the reservationist when he learned that a flight from Miami to Tampa was $260.

The couple hadn't showered in eight days. On one of the flights, they were served a ham and cheese sandwich.

"But it tasted like filet mignon," Cuomo said.

Beth Gray may be contacted at graybethn@earthlink.net

[Last modified November 6, 2005, 01:59:22]