Are there natural disasters like flooding, earthquakes, fire or hurricanes in Yucatan: Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Merida, etc?
John Venator - Casa de los Venados
In the coast of Yucatan, there is of course the potential of a hurricane during the hurricane season, which is in the fall. Hurricane Wilma happened 6 or 7 years ago and Hurricane Gilberto was another major hurricane that struck Cancun before Hurricane Wilma. There is always a danger whether you are on the coast of Mexico or on the coast of Louisiana, Florida, or Carolina. Hurricane Wilma was unusual. Normally hurricanes come and go, they do damage and they are gone. Hurricane Wilma...In the coast of Yucatan, there is of course the potential of a hurricane during the hurricane season, which is in the fall. Hurricane Wilma happened 6 or 7 years ago and Hurricane Gilberto was another major hurricane that struck Cancun before Hurricane Wilma. There is always a danger whether you are on the coast of Mexico or on the coast of Louisiana, Florida, or Carolina. Hurricane Wilma was unusual. Normally hurricanes come and go, they do damage and they are gone. Hurricane Wilma moved at 4 or 5 miles per hour and it basically stayed in the greater Cancun area for almost 4 days so there was a lot of flooding. That doesn’t happen a lot. On an ongoing basis, you don’t have to worry about flooding in Cancun and Merida or in the Yucatan Peninsula. There are no earthquakes here in the Yucatan. It doesn’t exist at all in any of the entire Yucatan area. During the rainy season, we get heavy rain, so therefore, we can get some flooding. We have a number of drains here on our property that drains the rain water right into them quickly. Some of the streets flood a bit, temporarily up to your ankles or so but that is pretty much it.
We don’t really have fires here. However, I do have smoke alarms and I do have fire extinguishers in our house. People ask me why I have these even if I live in a stone house. I just think that something somehow could happen such as an electrical wire or the contents of the house somehow could ignite. We do have a city fire department but I could not think what our fire department does because I am not aware of any fires that have happened here in Yucatan. If a fire happens, it would be news here and nobody has ever talked about it but we do have a rudimentary fire department with a couple of fire trucks.
Merida is big and urban and of course they have a fire department because they have huge shopping malls and hotels. They have all the city services in terms of fire and emergency. They have city ambulances, too. Here in Valladolid, we have a couple of Red Cross ambulances that pick up and transmit people.
Cancun is another big and urban center here in Mexico, so there are at least four to five fire stations around Cancun.
(Rainfall totals in Mexico and Florida during hurricane Mitch 1998, pictured.)
Posted September 12, 2015
Doug Willey - Doug Willey, Independent Real Estate Consultant
Hurricanes are not a problem here in the state of Yucatan. (The Yucatan Peninsula has three states: Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. Yucatan has Merida, a city of over 1 million, and beach areas that are on the Gulf of Mexico. Quintana Roo has the famous Riviera Maya with the well known tourist and expat locations of Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum, all of which face the Caribbean.) The hurricane problem is in Quintana...
Hurricanes are not a problem here in the state of Yucatan. (The Yucatan Peninsula has three states: Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo. Yucatan has Merida, a city of over 1 million, and beach areas that are on the Gulf of Mexico. Quintana Roo has the famous Riviera Maya with the well known tourist and expat locations of Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum, all of which face the Caribbean.) The hurricane problem is in Quintana Roo, where you are on the Caribbean. That is what they call the Hurricane Alley. Hurricanes come from Africa and move right on through. It follows up the Caribbean and up to Florida, where they do get a lot of hurricanes.
Here in the state of Yucatan, our biggest problem is what they call the Nortes, which are winds at 25 to 30 miles per hour. During a Norte, the wind picks up, the waves are a little more intense, and the tide rises. It’s not a major deal. It doesn’t blow houses down or windows out. It is not recommended to go out on a 20-foot boat if there is a Norte out there. It’s not going to be any fun. But a lot of times, when there is a Norte, I sit on my porch, drink a beer, ad watch it.
There is no flooding here in the state of Yucatan, either. The only time that I remember Chelem got flooded was during hurricane Gilbert, in 1989. In Quintana Roo, however, some of the homes that are very low or the property was not build up at all get flooded when it rains for a complete day and night. I have seen some of these homes get flooded to their living rooms because they were built so low down to the ground. But that is fairly rare.
I have never heard of earthquakes here in the Yucatan Peninsula. It is Mexico City that has a lot of earthquakes.
Fire is not a problem here in Yucatan either because every building is built out of cement and cement blocks. I’ve never heard of any brush fires like the ones that happen in California, either.
(Cancun, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted December 31, 2015
Gustavo Cisneros - Petén
Flooding and earthquakes never happen here in the Yucatan Peninsula. The only disasters that we can get are hurricanes, and these vary in the damage they do based on where in the Yucatan Peninsula one is located. The state of Quintana Roo (which includes Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, etc., which is also called the “Riviera Maya) faces the Caribbean, while the state of Yucatan (which contains the inland city of Merida and several beach communities) faces the Gulf of Mexico....
Flooding and earthquakes never happen here in the Yucatan Peninsula. The only disasters that we can get are hurricanes, and these vary in the damage they do based on where in the Yucatan Peninsula one is located. The state of Quintana Roo (which includes Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, etc., which is also called the “Riviera Maya) faces the Caribbean, while the state of Yucatan (which contains the inland city of Merida and several beach communities) faces the Gulf of Mexico.Most of the hurricanes are formed on the southern part of Africa and they move upwards. So basically, there is an area before getting to the islands of the Caribbean where the hurricanes can go west and do some damage to the Riviera Maya area, which includes Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and so on. Those are open areas. If the hurricanes go towards the east of the islands, they usually go up to Florida and those areas.
It’s harder to get hurricanes in the state of Yucatan because of a combination of factors. When you get a hurricane that comes from the back like from Cancun or Playa del Carmen, the hurricane has to go through the jungle. We don’t have many bodies of water in that area so nothing can fuel the hurricane once it hits the jungle. The jungle acts as a barrier and it stops the hurricane from hitting the Yucatan state. Sometimes, there is a combination where there is a cold front. When that happens, instead of going upwards, the hurricane moves west and those are the hurricanes that could affect us in the state of Yucatan.
In the past 30 years, we have had two major hurricanes in the Yucatan state. Merida is protected because we are about 30 miles away from the nearest beach. Sometimes when we have a huge hurricane, like the one we had in 1980, which was hurricane Gilberto, it affected Merida. The latest one was around 2012 and it was called Isidore. Generally speaking, the hurricanes are much worse in the Riviera Maya area and the probability of them getting hit is higher. Celestún, Sisal, and those areas in the state of Yucatan, are very well covered from hurricanes. We were there when the big hurricane did some damage in 2012, and all we had in Sisal was the rising water level of the ocean but it was not a big issue. However, some areas on the Caribbean side of the Yucatan Peninsula were hurt by that hurricane.
The fires that happen here are usually set fires that are usually used to control the fires on the roads. There are campaigns for it. Tsunamis never happen here either.
(Inland city of Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted March 1, 2016
Andy James
There are natural disasters in the Yucatan Peninsula, and that gets a little complicated. You’re going to see hurricanes on the Mayan Riviera- there have been several. It’s unusual to see hurricanes in the Merida area or north of the peninsula, because once the hurricanes get into the gulf, they tend to go northwest to the south, but it can’t happen. There was a hurricane here in Yucatan 15 years ago that caused problems. On the...
There are natural disasters in the Yucatan Peninsula, and that gets a little complicated. You’re going to see hurricanes on the Mayan Riviera- there have been several. It’s unusual to see hurricanes in the Merida area or north of the peninsula, because once the hurricanes get into the gulf, they tend to go northwest to the south, but it can’t happen. There was a hurricane here in Yucatan 15 years ago that caused problems. On the other hand, I have not heard of earthquakes in Yucatan. Fire is unusual in that there’s a lot of concrete here, and there’s not a huge amount of forests.
Natural disasters like minor flooding after a very strong rainstorm in the wet season can occur. In downtown Merida and other towns where there is a lot of stagnant water, and sometimes the water gets into houses. I know people who have houses that get flooded a couple of times a year, but the flood ends up dissipating. It’s not life-altering, but it’s a pain.
The hurricanes are a lot worse in the Quintana Roo area. Hurricanes start in Africa, and come across the ocean which is their engine, and that’s how they gain speed and power. But there’s a few things in the way of these hurricanes. For example, the windward islands in the eastern Caribbean. There’s also Jamaica. There are a number of natural barriers to Quintana Roo being hit by hurricanes, but having said that, it does get hit. Mahahual has been beaten up a few times and so have so many other cities, so definitely these disasters can happen. They’re not as common as in certain other places I have lived, but these disasters can absolutely happen.
Living in Merida, I don’t carry hurricane insurance. If I lived in the Mayan Riviera, I would seriously consider hurricane insurance, which I understand is not cheap because every 10-20 years, they know they’re going to get hit.
(Hurricane Dean in 2007 over the Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted February 8, 2017