Pacific coast area hardest hit by Patricia begins to dig out

A convoy of soldiers trying to reach the village of Rebalse after hearing reports that it was flooded, is forced by muddy roads to turn back, outside Cihuatlan, Jalisco state, Mexico, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2015. The soldiers were later able to access the village via another badly broken and flooded road as they drove past devastated banana fields. Patricia roared ashore in Mexico on Friday as a Category 5 terror that barreled toward land with winds up to 200 mph (320 kph). But the arrival of the most powerful hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere caused remarkably little destruction. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) A convoy of soldiers trying to reach the village of Rebalse after hearing reports that it was flooded, is forced by muddy roads to turn back, outside Cihuatlan, Jalisco state, Mexico, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2015. The soldiers were later able to access the village via another badly broken and flooded road as they drove past devastated banana fields. Patricia roared ashore in Mexico on Friday as a Category 5 terror that barreled toward land with winds up to 200 mph (320 kph). But the arrival of the most powerful hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere caused remarkably little destruction. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

By Associated Press October 25, 2015 4 min read

EL REBALSE, Mexico (AP) – The town square in El Rebalse is now an island amid Hurricane Patricia’s floodwaters, a place for Maria Santana Vazquez and her husband to rest Sunday after wading through water, at times chest deep, trying to return home.

All around, kids swam, a dog paddled and just before noon two high-clearance army transport trucks arrived – the first outside help since Patricia, the hemisphere’s strongest hurricane on record, roared in Friday night and washed out the only paved road into town.

While Mexico for the most part was relieved that the storm caused no fatalities and only marginal damage in the resort of Puerto Vallarta and the principle port of Manzanillo, the sparsely populated zone of Pacific coast where Patricia delivered its fury was only beginning to assess the full damage Sunday.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said Saturday that 3,000 to 3,500 homes were damaged and about 8,650 acres of farmland were hurt. But that was before anyone from the government arrived in El Rebalse, a town surrounded by banana plantations that Associated Press journalists tried to reach on foot before hitching a ride on the army trucks.

Banana trees as far as the eye could see were snapped in half, and large bunches of the fruit moldered in the intense sun.