Hurricane plays havoc in Mexico city

ACAPULCO, Oct 26 (AP): A day after Hurricane Otis roared ashore in Acapulco, unleashing massive floods and setting off looting, the resort city of nearly 1 million descended into chaos, leaving residents without electricity or internet service as the toll remained uncertain.
The early images and accounts were of extensive devastation, toppled trees and power lines lying in brown floodwaters that in some areas extended for miles. The resulting destruction delayed a comprehensive response by the government, which was still assessing the damage along Mexico's Pacific coast, and made residents desperate.
Many of the once sleek beachfront hotels in Acapulco looked like toothless, shattered hulks a day after the Category 5 storm blew out hundreds - and possibly thousands - of windows.
There seemed to be a widespread frustration with authorities. While some 10,000 military troops were deployed to the area, they lacked the tools to clean tons of mud and fallen trees from the streets. Hundreds of trucks from the government electricity company arrived in Acapulco early Wednesday, but seemed at a loss as to how to restore power, with downed electricity lines lying in feet of mud and water.
Jakob Sauczuk was staying with a group of friends at a beachfront hotel when Otis hit. "We laid down on the floor, and some between beds," Sauczuk said. "We prayed a lot."
One of his friends showed reporters photos of the windowless, shattered rooms in the hotel. It looked as if someone had put clothes, beds and furniture in a blender, leaving a shredded mass.
Sauczuk complained that his group was given no warning, nor were offered safer shelter, by the hotel.
Pablo Navarro, an auto parts worker who was lodged in temporary accommodations at a beach front hotel, thought he might die in his 13th story hotel room.
"I took shelter in the bathroom, and thankfully the door held," said Navarro. "But there were some room where the wind blew out the windows and the doors."
Navarro stood Wednesday outside a discount grocery and household goods store near the hotel zone, as hundreds of people wrestled everything from packs of hot dogs and toilet paper to flat screen TVs out of the muddy store, struggling to push loaded metal shopping carts onto the mud-choked streets outside. "This is out of control," he said.
Isabel de la Cruz, a resident of Acapulco, tried to move a shopping cart loaded with diapers, instant noodles and toilet paper through the mud.
She viewed what she took as a chance to help her family after she lost the tin roof of her home and her family's important documents in the hurricane. "When is the government ever going to look after the common people?" she said.