Storm chasing with Sergio and CNN

So as you probably know hurricane dean hit they Yucatan peninsula early on Tuesday the 21^st of 2007. The storm entered being a cat 5 and caused some really severe damage in the south eastern part of the peninsula before heading in land. Chetumal and Mahahual were pretty much destroyed.

Anyway that same day I got a call from the head offices in Atlanta asking if I would be interested to meet up with the crew and help set up their logistics and serve as a translator… I said yes and everything was set to meet them that night at 11 at the airport. Of course the flight was cancelled and they had to drive about 800 km from Mexico City to Champoton Campeche overnight. I got another call the next day at about 11am and headed out with my budy Sergio to Champoton. I figured going with Sergio would be prudent since the cel phone communications were really unreliable and well… we were going to be driving in to a hurricane.

I thought we would have gotten more trouble from the cops and army, but we were able to get to Champoton with relative. The conditions on the way there were not to bad before we passed Campeche city, and then things started to get fairly crazy. Anyway we finaly arrived to Champoton at about 3pm, spotted the CNN vans and got to it. This was the worst point of the storm for us… the winds were pretty crazy and we were of course completely drenched. The crew did a couple live shots and then we got word that we had to make our way to Campeche city. We caravanned all the vehicles together and got to Campeche and set up on the boardwalk for a shoot were the destruction was minimal.

The odd thing was that the sea which in Campeche is held back by these concrete walls had gone back about 40 meters… and of course I was worried about having it all rush back. I found room for everyone in a fairly nice 4 star hotel and after the drama was oer we all check in got some food and got to bed since we had to get up at 4am for a live feed. The 4am feed got cancelled and that was about it, there were some things to sort out with money and the rental cars, but once that was taken of, the crew made their way to the Campeche airport for their flight back home.

Lindy Hall (producer) - Sergio Sanchez - Chris Lawrence (correspondent) - Carlos Rosado - Ramirez (Camera man)

That´s all for now!