What can we say except, “Thank God for his protection!” as we assess the situation here in the Yucatán.
The facts are plain:
- Dean was a category 5 hurricane, the highest on the scale of hurricane strength.
- It made landfall with a sustained wind speed of 165 mph the first since Andrew to do so.
- Dean is now among the top 10 strongest hurricanes on record at landfall.
- Storms of the magnitude of Dean have the potential to be catastrophic. Andrew, for example, caused 65 fatalities and 38.1 billion dollars worth of damage in today’s economy.
Still the final results are nothing less than miraculous:
- To date no fatalities have been directly blamed on Dean here in the Yucatán
- Upon landfall, the storm rapidly lost strength and caused what President Calderon has said was “minor damage.”
- The Diario de Yucatan (Spanish) called Dean a “dry hurricane.” Most populated areas received high winds but little to none of the rains that were expected to cause flooding across the peninsula. Our contact in Muna, Pastor Julian Puc, held service that same night, while Pastor Santos Reyes, who is in Ciudad del Carmen where the hurricane left the peninsula, has told me that everything is functioning “as normal” after only 24 hours without electricity.
Everything from the landfall over a less populated area, to the speed in which it passed over was beneficial for the inhabitants of the Yucatán.
Again, thank you for your prayers on our behalf and that of the people of Yucatán. Also, thank you to those who wished us well through e-mail, phone calls, comments on our site, and links highlighting the situation. We appreciate each one of you.
