Brush with Hurricane Rick from reader Vienna

As the regular readers of the site are aware, a few weeks ago we had a young lady, Vienna, ask about whether she should continue her trip to Cabo San  Lucas even though Hurricane Rick had just developed (it was not yet a hurricane).  I had suggested she should be be prepared to leave in a few days.

Her vacation was to last a full week beginning the Saturday prior to Rick.  Rick wasn’t forecast to make landfall in Cabo until Thursday.  However, a sharper turn and faster forward progress moved potential landfall up to Tuesday.  Of course, Hurricane Rick never struck Cabo directly and Vienna and her group never evacuated.

The following is an unedited message from Vienna with regards to her trip:

Myself, my husband, and 4 friends arrived in Cabo San Lucas on Saturday evening October 17^th.  The weather was rather humid and the temperature was in the mid 90’s.  I had been following Hurricane Rick via my internet on my cell phone.  As of this day, the hurricane was not suppose to hit until Friday or Saturday.  I got updates from Personalhurricane.com and “Google Alerts”.

On Sunday, the weather was still humid and the sky was clear.  It was hard to believe that a Hurricane was even going to hit.  I got word from Tim Trice that morning that Hurricane Rick had take a turn for the worse and that it would hit very close to land as early as Tuesday evening into Wednesday.  He advised me to make arrangements to leave as soon as possible.  It was believed that the Hurricane would still be about a Category 2.  A couple “Google Alerts” also, confirmed this.

I broke news to the rest of the group about the sobering information I had just received.  Most of the group didn’t want to leave although there was still concern.  Coincidently a couple staying at the resort asked us in passing if we heard about the Hurricane.  We told them that yes we did, and that we were going to stay.  The wife told us that they had made plans to evacuate that evening.

We went on with our day as planned but decided if we were going to stay it would be a good idea to get some supplies for the room.  If in fact Hurricane Rick did hit and we were forced to take shelter in our Hotel room, then we wanted to be prepared.  We bought, food, water, card games for entertainment and of course some alcohol!

Early Monday morning around 4:30am the whole resort was awaken by a powerful thunderstorm.  The rain was coming down very hard and the sky looked ominous.  Every thunder shook the room like an earthquake and it seemed to get louder and louder.  The bright lights from the thunderbolts laminated through the curtains.  I couldn’t go back to sleep because I feared that this was just a “warning shot” from what was to come in the days ahead.  The rain later stopped and left traces of clouds throughout the afternoon.  The humidity seemed to have lifted.

All morning long we followed the hurricane’s progress on the local news channel.  There was no immediate change in the forecast at this time.  I expressed my concerns to the rest of the group and again, they all agreed that we would stay and “ride it out”.  We could all say that we “survived Hurricane Rick”.  Most still remained skeptical that the Hurricane would even hit.

Later that afternoon, we went into town for lunch. I asked a local cab driver if he was nervous about the Hurricane.  He said he was not worried at all.  He assured me that in all of the 10 years he had lived there a hurricane has never hit.  It put me to ease somewhat and we carried on with our day.  One of our friends who was scheduled to take a flight back to LAX on Tuesday evening chose to reschedule her flight for a later date so she would not be caught in any bad flying weather assuming the flight would not already be cancelled.

Tuesday morning I was awaken with more “Google Alerts” and updates from Tim.  Although the Hurricane was weakening it was still forecasted to hit very close to land.  At this point the local news was also reporting the weakening of this storm and it was believed that “if” it was still to hit land it would be as a Category 1.  This was comforting news to me and reassuring news to the rest of the group.   It rained off and on in the morning with clouds moving in and out.  The sun even shined brilliantly for a while.  Enough so that we all went down to the pool for a few hours.

My husband spoke to a gentlemen who lived in Arizona and was visiting for the week.  He was not concerned about the “Hurricane”, but he was a little shooken up with the thunderstorm from yesterday morning.

Around 4pm the rain came back and heavy as ever.  People were still in the pool because it just hit so quickly and without warning.  We went back to our room to get ready for dinner.  I was still getting “Google Alerts” and later that evening we got news that the storm had been down graded to a “Tropical Storm”.  I myself was very relieved and I gave the good news to the rest of the group.

Wednesday morning, which was suppose to be the aftermath of Hurricane Rick, turned out to be one of the most beautiful mornings of our whole trip.  The weather was perfect around the low 90’s and there was a cool breeze swishing through the palm trees around the resort.

I kept in contact with Tim throughout the trip, updating him on our status.  My cell phone internet was my main form of contact while on this trip.  I also, got a few email concerns from friends about the Hurricane but I assured them all that we were safe.  Although Hurricane Rick never hit, it will still be a memorable trip with lots of adventures.

If you have a hurricane story you’d like to share, please email me and I will get it up as soon as possible.

Thanks, Vienna!