From Valentina- Regarding Rina

[mfay]

We did hear from Valentina at about 12:30 PM eastern. She asked us to pass on the following:

Desire is evacuating everyone from the resort today. Although a mandatory evacuation has not been ordered yet by authorities, they believe it will be within a matter of hours. The Desire guests are being taken to Temptations in Cancun. She says that all possible measures are being taken to make sure that all Desire guests and staff are safe !
She sends lots of love to all the forum members, and promises to keep us all posted.
Sounds like they expect the area to have water everywhere tomorrow. But of course what they can't know yet is just how much havoc the winds will cause..............

[CokeMann]

Even though Rina has now weakened and is predicted to be no more than a Cat 1 hurricane, Desire has learned from past hurricanes that the real issue is the storm surge caused by the weather can quickly put the low lying Desire property underwater.

Here's hoping that Rina will continue to weaken further and also turn further back to sea over the next 24 hrs.

[Siren]

Thanks for the update! Sending all our good juju down to our friends at Desire!

Kathleen & Alonzo

[mfay]

Great news from Desire !
Valentina says that Desire re-opens at 5:00 PM today ! They are bringing back all the Desire refugees from Temptations then.
They are obviously very happy to be back in business and to have everyone back where they belong.
She says that damage is very light. A few ground floor rooms had some water get inside- both on the beach and the lagoon sides- and will be closed for a little while. And she says they actually have a new (temporary-lol) lagoon outside of the lobby area.
Other than that is was mostly cleanup. They had a really big crew come in first thing this morning and start cleaning. they are just about done and they have trucks hauling out all the stuff now. She even said that the beach is in pretty good shape ! It was of course covered in trash, but they did not lose too much sand.
They and the whole area really dodged a bullet this time.
WE are all so lucky !