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Hello Dolly!

On the last day of our trip to the Riviera Maya area of Mexico, we were hit with a tropical storm called “Dolly”.  After hitting the Yucatan, this tropical storm then turned into Hurricane Dolly and hit the Texas coast.  At the time, there was a lot of conflicting information about the storm.  The hotel began by removing all of the beach and pool chairs and canceling events.  They then told us that the storm would hit overnight and would not be a problem.

In the morning I woke up early and headed to the beach to see if I could find some good photos.  Winds were noticeable but nothing that would cause alarm.

It started to rain so I took cover under a large hut where some of the workers clearing the beach of debris also took refuge.  We chatted about the storm (my Spanish came in handy!) and one of them mentioned that the storm is now offshore and may become a hurricane.  He also mentioned that it had not hit yet – but would later in the day.  Another tourist – an American – stopped by and mentioned that the storm had reached hurricane status and would hit later in the day.  Obviously, this caused some alarm, but didn’t stop me from taking some shots before heading back to my hotel room to get the info from CNN.

Back at the hotel room, I found out that the storm had indeed hit us overnight and the only effect we were seeing was a good amount of rain.  After it had passed the Yucatan, it reached hurricane status and as you know later on hit the Texas coast.  From a tropical storm point of view, I have seen much stronger ones.  The shot above gives an idea of the size of the waves and there wasn’t much more debris on the beach than one normally finds in the morning washed up ashore.  Even the rain was rather weak – I have seen much stronger rains in the Peruvian rain forests and in Singapore.

Here’s a shot of the beach huts without their beach chairs.

I guess I shouldn’t be complaining, as a true hurricane would have royally messed up our vacation because we were leaving that day and our flight would likely have been canceled.  For me, this would not have been much of a concern but for our two small children it would have been.  Still, it was nice to be able to photograph a news making event, even if I didn’t truly photograph a hurricane.

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Tags: dolly, hurricane, hurricane dolly, mexico, photography, riviera maya, tropical storm, yucatan