Thursday, July 24, 2008

Oops!

Por Esto, the local newspaper around here, had an interesting story yesterday.


It seems that when TS Dolly was about to hit us this past weekend, a meeting was held by some of the top authorities on the island about preparations and safety. Except they forgot to invite the Director of Hotels.


As a result, when the harbor was closed at 7:30 PM on Sunday night, every body left on the island was left on the island. No way off. Word was not passed to hotels to let their guests know that if they needed or wanted to get off the island, they better do it before 7:30 PM. As a result, many tourists missed their flights home and day visitors ended up being overnight visitors.


The Director of Hotels is now accusing the Mayor, the Harbor Master and especially the newly appointed Director of Tourism with not doing their jobs. She also wants to know why she was cut out of the loop and not invited to the meeting.


Good question.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

OOPS!!
I'm officially not the only one who made some *coughs* slight, oversights that day apparently!
I've always thought it would be cool to be stranded on an island but i had a much more romantic version that played out in my head...

My Way said...

I wish I could say that I'm surprised but I'm not. I feel really bad for the tourists. Not good.

Anonymous said...

Oops is right for sure. More intrigue and squabbles to follow I am sure.
I was on Siesta Key, Florida in 2004 when a big hurricane was coming. My friend wanted to leave days ahead of the predicted landfall way south of us. Finally I agreed to leave two days early. But in that case we had a car and drove away. I would hate to be a naïve tourist and get stuck on Isla when a potential hurricane was approaching. I have enough friends that live on the island that I would always have a safe place to go to. But I would be smart and leave early anyway.

Anonymous said...

We were in Cancun when hurricane Mitch "brushed by the Yucatan... at first it was kind of crazy exciting. Then when we realized that we couldn't leave, it got real. Two hurricane briefings per day at our hotel. They told us that we couldn't leave the hotel anymore. The Ritz did a fantastic job taking care of us but I have to tell you, it is very scary and all I wanted to do was get out. The one thing that we couldn't do... go home. Very powerful. I'm sure that there will be some fallout from that faux pas!!!! Again, glad you are safe. - trina

Anonymous said...

Navy came by our hotel downtown at 8:00 p.m. and told the owner that the guests had to evacuate. We didn't, but where would we have gone since the harbor was already closed??