Hi Gang, Sunday, October 21, 2001

As of today things are getting back to normal fast. There is no reason to cancel your trip. If you drive expect delays. Even large RVs can get through. The following reports are in reverse chronological order. They are unedited form as they came via e-mail.

Produced by: Mike Godsey, iwindsurf.com

Here is a fast summary. In La Ventana the beach and campground suffered lots of cosmetic damage but will be OK by Dec. Los Barilles suffered some significan flooding and North Beach area has some severe local damage. No report from Cabo Plumo and Pt. Chivato yet. Traffic on Hwy. 1 is now getting through but detours and rough conditions are common. The road should be in pretty good condition in a week or two.

By Bobbie and Leon,

Lets start at the beginning. We left the Bay Area on Thursday and spent the night in a small town outside of Bakersfield. We then headed to San Diego. We crossed the Border on Sunday morning. No problems! They just waived us through. We drove 12 hours to Guerro Negro, The next day we drove to Loreto.

The section from Mulege to Loreto the roads were really bad. Lots of debris, rocks, dirt, detours. The roads got worse from Loreto to La Paz. From Ciudad Constitution to La Paz was the worse. The road was gone. The arroyos were full of water and had to use 4wd to get through them. The water was so deep in one area that it came into the trailer. That was pretty hairball; a semi got stuck right in front of us. They had to use a bulldozer to push him out. Leon just put it in 4wd and stood on the gas. We made it no problem. It was about 2 ft. feet deep. Then about 10 minutes later they had a detour that took us out into the desert for about 5 miles. This was not from the storm; they were building a new road. So instead of closing off half the road like we do in America, they just send you out into the desert. It was slow going, but we finally made it to La Paz.

Just 28 more miles, Can we make it! Yes, the roads were okay, a few landslides and one-lane roads, but no water crossings. We made it to an RV Park in La Ventana. They had some damage, and the arroyo went through part of his property. Nothing that can&Mac226;t be fixed.

We got to go windsurfing the first day, and caught fish the second day. We are now eating fish again and will continue to eat fish for the next 6 months. Good thing I bought a new cookbook. Leon already has an invite to go goat hunting with YoYo again, and we are going to a Fiesta on Saturday for their daughter Brenda who just turned 18 years old.

The weather is very hot here, low 90 with 80% humidity. Water temperature is about 80 degrees. The shower is the only place to cool off. It has cold water. It is very refreshing. The hurricane left a mess on the beach. There was a lot of debris from the arroyos. It will be a month or so before it gets back to normal.

There is no one down here. We are the only ones at YoYo&Mac226;s so far. The campground down the road has about 10 people. We have seen one or two people pull in everyday.

By Mike and Terry

Hi everybody,
we left los angeles on sat. The 6th and drove to punta chivato. The roads were fine with a few bumpy spots around catavina. We only stayed in chivato 2 nights because miggie got 50 bites on him. He went crazy, poor baby, i felt horrible seeing him in such pain. Anyway, we left at 6 am and drove to la ventana, getting in around 4. The drive was slow with wash outs starting below loreto. By now the roads should be ok as there were many men working to fix them with lots of equipment.
La ventana was hit fairly hard but no where near as bad as los barrilles or cabo.
Ventana had no lights or water for 9days. The campground was a mess but is now repaired. Dave and lana, everything looks fine no damage just a lot of died bugs inside.
We checked andy's lot no damage. Garvin and sara's no damage except that the front or tongue of your trailer fell to the ground, it looks ok just needs to be picked up. John and rebecca you have some erosion problems however the wall is still in tact. We didn't get to look at the wall from the front but will in the next few days and will let you know how it looks. Our house and land and john and susan's are fine.
The beaches sure have changed. The campground is all sand, the strip in front of john and rebecca's down to garvin's has a lot more sand. Our beach was all rocky with half the jetty gone. We had 4 guys here yesterday and it looks much better already. We need to start a beach fund! Umberto's beach didn't change a bit!!!
If we didn't mention your property that means that we haven't had a change to look at it yet. We will try in the next few days to check things out further.
Sorry for the mass mailing, more personal stuff later.
Love and hugs to all and please send info on the war. We didn't know about it until yesterday when in town we saw a blip on tv.
mike & terry

By Lane,

Here is the latest report from Los Barriles. We just got this message from Don & Gayle, our next door neighbors. It is a journal of their trip down last week. Will provide more updates as they come.

We had a perilous trip down to our casa through some of the worst roads I have ever seen. We got to Gurrerro Negro for what was to be our overnight stay, we were met at the immigration check point by a group of officials that we showing us a printed message in English that said the lower part of Baja was completely cut off from the rest to the world. The roads were blocked between Mulige and Loreto in 5 places, no telephones, electricity or gas and water was in very short supply. This did not tell us how bad it really was; we were to find out first hand in three days. We spent three nights in Gurrerro and after finding out that the roads had washed out north of us, we were cut off from going back to the States. We left at 3 am and drove south, into the problems. We found several very large rivers running across the road, we saw trucks and cars abandoned in the water and still we locked up the 4-wheel drive and somehow got across them, one was actually over the headlights and came into the car through the door seals. Gayle and I were both at times sure we would become a river victims!

Photo by Eric Skemp, near North Beach arroyo.

The Road to Los Barriles through La Paz and then past the mountains of San Bartolo were really bad, the road had washed away in places leaving only just enough for us to keep the wheels at the very edge of at times a fall of several hundred feet, there were not really any other cars moving around, then we found some people that had somehow made it to La Paz for water and food and gas as the town has none, we followed them down a riverbed almost 5 miles to the beach north of town and then we forded the last river, the one behind our house, it was about 1/4 mile wide and there are cars sinking in the middle, houses have washed away along side it and are caved in.

We are home safe and have gotten the generator working after about 3 hours of mechanical work, living out of the car 12-volt ice chest, and running the generator to power the small freezer. Our phones came back on today, we hope to have electricity on in the next two weeks, the entire transmission lines came down, big Trucks cannot get down the roads even to do repair. We have heard that there are almost 500 semi trucks struck back at Loreto where we forded the large river, even after that it will take weeks to get the road back to at least one lane, the road to the airport gong south to Cabo is closed, some vehicles have made it through but even the 4 wheel drive cars need to be towed out by chains from the far bank. We know that they are helicoptering people in to do repair work on the phones we met one group in Guerrero, I think that is why we are back to having phone contact again. The beaches are so eroded that getting to a boat is almost impossible, and maneuvering an ATV on the sand; is quite a task, because there is no sand. Yes, this sounds dismal because you who know our town would be saddened by this.

Photo by Eric Skemp

Natives say this is worst than KIKO... so clean up will be long and arduous. Much of the town is still under water, and Tio Pablo’s had to close for 1 week to dig out the silt. We did survive with a roof intact, but much constant pounding of water made for lots on the floor, as Consuelo y Roberto and family bailed us out many times. They really worked hard for us, and without them we would have had a mess, that would have made even Gayle want to move back to the states!! Neighbors rescued our impassable street to the Casa by hauling in dirt to fill. As I type a road grader has made several passes. If neighbors had not done what they did we would not have made it up the road when we limped in at 7 P.M.Thursday. Today is Sat. and we are typing this and not sure whether it will go though on the Internet. Sorry this is such bad news, even people with homes here are not coming down, because no one will pick them up at the airport, and we have discouraged many from driving for at least another week. AND we should not have done what we did either, but rest assured NEVER again. Guess we better value life more. To our family, we are slowing getting back to normal ... hard living out of ice chest (er no ice) but generator power and noise. Seems we are on the hunt for dead smelling things as well... just too much water and things dying, Yuck,,,

Dear Mike,

First day for email. Phones not working yet. Electric in laventana just one hour ago some damage to joe and steve nothing that can't be fixed .. your house and all area north of El Sergento area came through without problem.

Gail

From Angie at Baja Joes in LaVentana,

As many have seen or heard on the news, Baja was hit by hurricane Juliette, at one time a category 4 storm. It weakened as it travel north toward the peninsula and was predicted to skirt Cabo San Lucas. It didn't. We in La Ventana, watched intently as reports were made. The wind and rain started in on Wednesday 9/26 with a gusty downpour early in the day. Clouds built, waves got bigger, but the wind was fairly mild all day. We closed windows and doors, moved rocks to better let the water get to the sea, and braced ourselves. Thursday dawned gray and quiet, no birds were out making their usual morning greetings to the day. The wind steadily increased and the drenching rains came more frequently throughout the day. Arroyos began running, but would stop when the rain would stop. That afternoon it began to really rain, the wind, although strong, wasn't doing much more than swaying the trees and slanting the rain. At dusk, the wind became strong, really pushing the trees and lifting some palm fronds. The rain came in the front door, through the windows and it seemed to be coming through the walls. I had towels piled up in front of the door, but couldn't ring them out fast enough to stop the water flowing under and into the house. We did the best we could to shore up for the night, but I woke once and walked around in an inch of water. The wind and rain were howling during the night, not many in La Ventana got much sleep that night.

Here is the road to LaVentana. It is now open but in bad shape.

Friday morning began with the same conditions, we looked out to see rain going horizontal and we couldn't see 20 feet into it. Mid-morning the rain let up a bit and we donned raincoats to see how things were. Our arroyo/driveway had been a river during the night, and came very close to our north corner nearest the beach. The rushing water had undermined that corner so that it was hanging in mid air. We began collecting rocks and piling them there, then we attacked more where the water made its' turn toward that corner and dug out the main route to the beach, so that it wouldn't be likely to go close to the buildings again. We had lots of help, Cory and Tate were by early in the morning, later YoYo and Tany helped. We hung tarps over our east facing windows and the front door, and that slowed the flow into the house, but didn't stop it completely, we still needed to ring the towels often. The wind and rain continued all day and into the night. Saturday morning was calm, occasional showers but much less wind. We went out to see again, and couldn't get much further than the end of our driveway. It seemed that we were on an island. Water was flowing down the driveway and on the other side of our property. The sea was dark brown, the surf 10 feet or so, and the beach mostly gone. Because the rain had let up some, we were able to go to the village in the late morning. The sites were incredible.

We arrived at Pablo & Helie's as they finished some shoring up of their property bordering the arroyo there. The water was coming toward Pablo's house, store, restaurant, and all the trailers he has stored. This same arroyo drains into the campground near the pier, on a normal rainfall amount storm. That night, the water crossed the road, and joined with the arroyo on the north side of the campground and pushed out to sea. This north arroyo was flowing hard too, pushing it's way to the sea along the road and eroding the edges. Where once a small lagoon would form in the trees on rainy days, is now a big arroyo, and new beach access. The water moved through every part of the campground, giving it a fresh washed look. Where the water came to the sea, there is a big mound of sand. I think this will be very nice for launching this winter. The pier succumbed to the pressure of the pounding waves and fell into to sea and was being torn apart. Our latest report put the storm center very near us, and this gave the quiet an eerie quality.

Here is image of the hurricand at its worse.

The electricity went out early Thursday, and our generator wasn't running very well. The heavy cloud cover blocked our TV reception, so, we were getting news only in bits and pieces. We'd heard that 3 people in Cabo had died, one a surfer from Colorado. Tany told us that 2 tin roofs of homes in El Sargento blew off, but other than that there hasn't been any injuries or major problems. We saw one drowned cow on the beach and heard that there are others that fell into arroyos and drowned. All the garbage stacked up in the arroyos over the years, of course, went with the rain water out to sea and is being thrown onto the beach by the waves. Every bit of brush and tree limb and cactus that couldn't hold on was in the surf too. There are piles of this mulch-like debris. The number of bits of cholla are amazing. It will be a new hazard to body dragging with a kite for a few days. Every arroyo flowed like rivers, all the streets are rutted with runoff and the main power lines are down near the road to the blow-hole. We heard that power is out all over including La Paz and we think it may be weeks before the power company can get to our small community.

Today, Sunday, we took a ride north, there the arroyos flowed too, but the smaller ones only smaller amounts, the 2 bigger ones far to the north carried a lot of water bringing sand to the beach. It seems that not much damage was done to any buildings and everyone had a safe place to ride out the storm. Now we are all looking at many days of clean-up. Bonnie & Johnnie, Ann-Marie & Franz, and Ken& Maryellen are the earliest arrivals to the campground this year and have started the clean-up there. During the storm they moved out of the campground, Bonnie & Johnnie into the village, the others to the gate. Their trailers rocked and leaked, but they are ready to settle in for the winter now. I've taken lots of pictures, so if you're interested, come see. See you soon, Angie

Hi Mike. Sorry, I don't have info on the road north of El Sargento. Nor have we been able to contact Esteban. He didn't respond to an email we sent just before Juliet hit, so we're assuming he's down there and not in Napa? Have you tried calling him at the winery? When I get a moment, I'll email Humberto and Cristina and ask if they know the condition of the road north. Since he owns the catepillar that grades the roads, he'll be interested in their condition! As for Kirk and Joe and Angie, we don't know specifics. Kirk hasn't left and is in Cabrillo at the moment, and also hasn't responded to our email. Actually, you and Mike and Terri are the only Baja neighbors who have responded. Anyway, perhaps one day we'll actually meet you. We'll send any news we collect over the next week. Please do the same. Regards, Jeffrey and Vicki Kahan

Mex 19 below.

From Esteban

Just a few fotos of some of the souvenirs of Julieta...looks like things were bad but compared to Todos we were lucky...here are a few things I
heard. Campground is wasted which if you look at these fotos of my beach you get some idea of what it may look like, 1.5 hours to drive from La Paz
to LV, Water system in El Sargento, LV is all messed up, power still out, ....sure looks peaceful as ever though! My cat Tigger got hit by something
and died on the way to the Vet in La Paz, this is a foto of what must have been his last moments with Christina. Pales with NY and DC but a tragic
event nevertheless. Hope you and yours are all well. See you down there soon.

Saludos,
Esteban

Here is the beach between Baja Joes and Ventana Windsurf. Photo by Esteban

From Sharon

I got some details about the storm damage from Fran today. 3000 homes lost in Cabo area, Cabo marina is gone. Impossible to drive to Barilles from Cabo airoport because of a wash at Las Cuervas (by turnoff to La Ribera). The No. Beach arroyo was much more damaged then the last flood. The last beach lot is totally gone, the walls of the 3 homes near the road are gone and it appears there is a dropoff in front of their garages. It's also impossible to drive north of the No Beach arroyo because of the drop off. However, someone went by CeCe and Steve's home and said it's OK...this is good as your home is very nearbye. You can get to Barilles from La Paz but it takes about 4 hours and one must drive thru the San Bartollo arroyo as the main road is not passable.

30" of rain fell in the San Bartollo in less the 24 hours!

So...no phones (except cell), no water, no power. I think Cabo is also without power. Not really the time to leave for there!

I will let you know anything else I hear, Wayne is waiting in Guerrero Negro till they let them go, as it's not possible to get to Loreto because a bridge is out. The Santa Rita bridge before La Paz is also gone.

Also, 3 feet of water in downtown Barilles. Wow...Sharon

Ventana Windsurf beach

Viki and Jeffrey

Hi everyone! We just hung up the phone after finally reaching La Paz. We spoke to Cristina (of Humberto y Cristina Osuna) at length about the damage sustained in El Sargento from Julieta. Here's their up to the minute info: La Paz had no electricity for 4 days, and horrendous rain, but hardly any structural damage. Two people were killed, due to trying to cross the arroyo on the Los Planes (Yonke) road near the Coca Cola plant. To illustrate the severity of the deluge, one girl's body was recovered in Fidepaz... OK, so Humberto was finally able to drive to El Sargento yesterday (Monday) and he reports that it's a total mess, but that everybody's palapas were still standing. Nobody was hurt, and they are still without power or water. Juan Ramon said they thought they'd have it back by Thursday. Baja Celular is not functioning because their tower blew down. Cristina said there is debris everywhere, that it looks "just like a hurricane hit the place." Really ugly, and lot's and lot's of water.

Campground at LaVentana below

As for the forwarded pictures we received from Joan and Greg, from someone in Todos Santos: Thankfully for El Sargento, Julieta did not hang overhead for the eight hours it did on the Pacific. Besides ripping up Todos Santos, it really hurt Conejo. Apparently the winds were not as severe on our side. (That Photoisland is a great website though, it scared the shit out of us!) Go to this address to see photos... http://www.photoisland.com/servlet/GuestLogin?USERNAME=bajabus Type in the name "hurricane" for the password, click again on hurricane at the left of the home page for pix. When you see a photo you would like to enlarge, click on it. This comes to all of us via Joan and Greg. So, it sounds like all our Mexican friends are OK, we still have some palm fronds left above our heads, and our landscaping efforts have been seriously thwarted. Now, if you tune into the weather channel, you'll see a swirling mass they are already naming (did I hear Lorna?) heading towards Baja once again. And the Hurricane season doesn't officially end until Halloween. Anyway, thanks again to Cristina and Humberto for their excellent reporting! Best to everybody from beautiful downtown San Miguel de Allende, Vicki and Jeffrey

From Sherman Island Lane,

The Hurricane really hit Mexico hard. Right now you can fly into Los Cabos but you might not be able to get anywhere after that. All bridges south of La Paz are out. The Marina in Cabo is gone! Some 3000 homes in Cabo are gone. The road from La Paz to La Ventanna is barely passable via 2 wheel vehicle. The campground in La Ventanna has been destroyed and may not be usable in time for the winter season. The road from La Paz to Los Barriles is passable to San Bartolo. From there you must travel via the arroyo to Los Barriles. May not be passable on 2 wheel drive at that point. No way to get from Los Barriles to the airport in Los Cabos at this point. Some 50 metal power poles are down. Some 150 wooden poles are down. There is little electricity south of La Paz. Water has not been restores as of yesterday. Everyone planning a trip to Baja should check before they go to confirm their plans. As of now, no phones south of La Paz.