By Enrique Vega Ayala
Official Chronicler of Mazatlán

In the collective memory of Mazatlecos, since 1975 the indelible memory of a cyclone has been linked to Olivia, which struck the port between 9:00 p.m. on Friday, October 24, and 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 25, fifty years ago. During the 20th century, the cyclones of 1927, 1943, and 1957 left deep marks, but Olivia’s destruction cemented it in the popular imagination as the most terrifying of them all.

At that time, the city still lacked the technological resources needed to closely track the evolution of such meteorological phenomena. Moreover, Olivia’s trajectory confused even those who tried to follow its path. The uncertainty about its destination wasn’t cleared up until the morning of the 24th. The strike, though no longer a surprise as in earlier times, still came with very little time for authorities to issue warnings or evacuate high-risk areas.

That Friday, neither radio nor newspapers—the main mass media of the day—reported that a cyclone was approaching the coast. (Television was just beginning to spread among Mazatlán households and depended on information from those same outlets.) Municipal authorities learned by phone around 10 a.m. of the emergency the population would soon face. Thirty minutes later, City Hall and the local military command began implementing urgent preventive measures. The DN-III Plan already existed—agreements had been signed just two years earlier to coordinate civil and military responses to disasters.

 

Experts informed authorities that around 8:00 p.m. Mazatlán would begin to feel the full force of the hurricane winds. By noon, word of alarm was already spreading among the people. The “cyclone ritual” began: trying to secure belongings left outdoors, boarding up doors and windows, and engaging in the inevitable panic buying—homegrown measures that complemented the official disaster-response mechanisms.

Through radio stations and loudspeakers, residents were urged to take shelter in their homes or safe places starting at 6:00 p.m. The most difficult task was convincing and relocating the settlers in the Luis Echeverría, Salvador Allende, and International Women’s Year colonies, and other informal housing areas, as well as setting up shelters to receive them.

Throughout the day, fishing boats returning from their first trips of the shrimping season—alerted to rough seas offshore—began entering the harbor. Most of the 440 boats in the fleet arrived early to the usual mooring zones to better withstand the storm’s fury.

The baseball series between the Mayos de Navojoa and the Venados de Mazatlán, scheduled at the Teodoro Mariscal Stadium, was suspended. The Venados, leaders of the newly started tournament, were on a hot streak with four consecutive series wins. Even the clashes between students and professors at the UAS Rosales Night Preparatory School, which had begun on the 21st, came to a halt. The municipal jail had just returned to normal after a general inspection in which only thirty improvised weapons were confiscated.

 

Rain and strong winds increased relentlessly from 7:00 p.m. onward. The power supply went out for good around 9:45 p.m. Records mark 9:30 p.m. as the time when the hurricane’s most intense quadrant entered the city, bringing maximum winds and rainfall. Shortly before midnight, there was a brief, eerie calm. During the half hour that the eye of the hurricane passed overhead, some ventured out to assess the damage. Most thought the danger had passed—but before they could react, the rain and wind returned.

Popular accounts say that “the cyclone came back.” The wind’s direction was different in this second onslaught—if the first had battered the front door, after the lull the fury struck the back one. “It had never happened before,” people said, adding that this storm brought lightning—“something no cyclone had ever done when hitting Mazatlán.” Although by 1:30 a.m. the hurricane had moved on, it’s said that no one slept that night.

Some of the city’s main stores at the time—La Casa Grande, La Comercial de Mazatlán, and Las Telas Oxford—lost everything in their display windows. The force of the wind and flying debris shattered glass and metal frames. Six ships sank in the navigation channel, and another was lost near the Tres Islas before reaching port. The airport tower was badly damaged; twelve small planes and one helicopter were severely affected. Many old houses lost their roofs, and some even saw their walls collapse. The Ángela Peralta Cinema (today the theater) lost what was left of its roof and part of its proscenium walls. Storm surges between the navigation channel and the Estero del Infiernillo overturned 29 train cars, dragging two into the water.

By Saturday morning, the city was devastated. Nearly every home had some kind of damage to repair. Streets were impassable. There was no electricity or water. El Sol del Pacífico, one of the city’s two newspapers, didn’t reach readers until late at night—it had been printed in Culiacán, where it would continue to be produced for several days. El Correo de la Tarde, directed by Abraham Ibarra, stopped publishing for five days due to the lack of power. Noroeste circulated, but it had no facilities in Mazatlán and was also printed in Culiacán.

 

Relief and reconstruction work began immediately. In fact, during the storm itself, several dozen people were evacuated from unsafe homes and taken by truck to the PRI headquarters, where another shelter was improvised, in addition to those already operating since early morning at City Hall and the Nautical School. By Saturday afternoon, aid began to arrive. In one of the so-called “air bridges,” the Ministry of Defense transported food and drinking water—requiring a quick restoration of the damaged airport control tower. On Sunday, two Navy ships docked carrying water, medicine, and rescue equipment.

Historical records from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S.), in Robert A. Baum’s publication “Eastern North Pacific Tropical Cyclones of 1975,” note:

“Hurricane Olivia was the most powerful to make landfall that season. Beginning on October 22, it was identified as a tropical storm in the southern Pacific off Mexico. It initially moved northwest, then curved northeast, gaining strength. Olivia reached Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with winds up to 185 km/h (115 mph) just before making landfall. Late on October 24, Olivia struck very near Mazatlán.
Mazatlán was severely battered. Nearly 30,000 people were evacuated, and around 7,000 homes were destroyed in the city and 14 surrounding localities. The hurricane caused 30 deaths and injured at least 500 people—ten fatalities and all injuries on land, while twenty others died in three shipwrecks caused by the storm.”

The psychological impact on the population was such that Olivia became remembered as the worst hurricane in local history, despite the earlier unnamed Category 4 cyclone (with winds up to 230 km/h) that had struck Mazatlán on October 22, 1957.