‘Acapulco Is Essentially Destroyed’: Fox Weather Shows Shocking First Images of Major Mexican City After Hurricane Otis

Fox Weather correspondent Nicole Valdes reported on some of the “first daylight images” to come out of Acapulco, Mexico on Wednesday after an early morning impact from a Category 5 hurricane.

“I will point out that we have just now received some of the first images, first daylight images of the destruction of that major hurricane,” Valdes said of Hurricane Otis, the strongest storm to ever hit the area, adding:

Take a look at these. I mean, they’re heartbreaking. You can see just the amount of devastation across this city. I want to point out that these are some that have been posted to social media. So I want to sort of relay the information as to what people who live in this community are saying about what this area looks like right now.

One man says there is very little information, almost none at this point. No one knows if or how many people have been lost, according to the few testimonies and without being able to confirm them. But many people say Acapulco is essentially destroyed and they are waiting for all kinds of help.

I mean, you could see people there sort of looking around and just stunned at the images of where their community sits. You could see, I mean, almost the entire side of that building to your left is wiped out. It’s a very tragic situation for this community, something that Mexican officials have said that they’re trying to get a handle on at this point, trying to restore that power in order to communicate to the people of Alcapulco, go to the state of Guerrero as to what to do, where to go to find emergency services.

“We know, thankfully, there were shelters that were opened up for those who maybe lost their homes or didn’t have a safe place to be during the height of this storm. But as you mentioned, Ian, because of just how quickly this turned into a Category 5 hurricane, at least it made landfall as that. There were probably a lot of people caught off guard, maybe even in a dangerous place that they wouldn’t want to be during such an intense storm,” Valdes added, noting that the city had very little warning as the storm intensified at a record rate.

Additional videos shared on social media showed the scale of the devastation:

Watch the full clip above via Fox Weather.