Daniel Morin
Isabelle Perreault thinks she’s very lucky despite being stranded for nearly a week on Mexico’s Riviera Maya by the worst hurricane on record.
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| Sean Lachapelle and Isabelle Perreault on the day of their wedding. |
Perreault, uOttawa’s manager of e-marketing, was honeymooning at Xpu-Ha, near Cancun, with her new husband Sean Lachapelle. The couple, married in Dunrobin on October 8, left for Mexico on October 10.
“We were there for 10 days and the weather was superb the whole time,” Perreault recalls. “I kept saying every single day how lucky we were.”
It was only on the eve of their planned return that they caught ominous warnings on CNN about force-5 hurricane Wilma approaching the area. The next day, as they returned to their resort from an excursion to the Tulum archeological site, they learned that Canadian authorities had issued an evacuation order. Hundreds of panicky people were massed in the lobby trying to find means of transportation to leave the area.
Perreault and Lachapelle were among the 100-or-so hotel guests unable to leave. In retrospect, Perreault thinks they were lucky. While other travelers were summarily dispatched to shelters with no food or water, she and her husband were able to withstand the storm in the relative safety and comfort of their hurricane-proof room in the Barcelo Maya Beach Resort.
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This still photo excerpted from one of two videos recorded by Sean Lachapelle from his hotel room gives an idea of the raging force of hurricane Wilma. While the stranded couple were relatively safe, they had to periodically scoop out the water that was pooling in their ground-level room. |
Wilma arrived the next morning. Perreault and Lachapelle woke at 5 a.m. just as the storm was beginning. “From then on, we were locked in our room for 36 hours,” a period during which “this insane, freakish storm,” fed by 250-km winds, raged ceaselessly outside.
“The power never went out,” Perreault says. There wasn’t any television to watch and very little to do but read and wait. “It’s a good way to get to know each other,” she says, laughing heartily. Meanwhile, hotel staff, covered in garbage bags, managed to come by once a day to bring sandwiches and water.
By Sunday, October 23, people were finally able to get out, walk around and assess the damage. Incredibly, “48 hours after the storm, the resort looked almost back to normal.”
But there was still the issue of how to get back to Canada. The couple took a bus headed for Cancun airport on Tuesday, October 25. They were met by an army blockade at the airport and for awhile, it seemed like they wouldn’t be allowed to leave even though their luggage had already been boarded. Fortunately, a representative from Skyservice Airlines overheard their plight and offered them two seats. “She made us a boarding pass on the spot. We were very lucky.”
