Mexico is Evaluating Hurricane Dean Damage

Everything is back to normal in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico as I can see on my little north end of town.

The Diario de Yucatan, http://www.yucatan.com.mx, reports this morning that there is a preliminary official count of 10 dead across Mexico because of Dean, but there are those who passed away prior to, during and after, attributed to various 'points' as they call them, that are not considered in the count. A fall from an upper portion of a house, an overturned car, a falling limb during cleanup, an electrocution of a homeowner trying to repair a damaged line, a drowning (my word; he was swept away) by one who ignored safety personnel, etc. Storm didn't actually cause the deaths.

Article continues on to say that all was not bad news, that at least 12 babies were born in hospitals in Quintana Roo and at least 4 in homes during the storm.

Agriculture has hit hard and evaluations of damage are not quite complete. Impact was minimized by some degree by the fact that many fields were harvested or not yet seeded.

Now, back to the non count of dead not specifically as a result of the hurricane per se.

This has worried by brain all day. I am of two minds of whether or not they should be counted.

One part of me says yes, they were preparing for, running from and/or trying to secure, fix, recover from the deadly storm.

Then the second part kicks in. Friends, the Yucatan and Mexico had plenty of time to get ready for this storm.

The elderly (as reported in the newspaper) gentleman that apparently fell from an upper story of his house while securing his windows, seemingly would have gone through this before and didn't live to be an elder by being careless. He just was this time. Hurricanes are not unusual to this part of the world and I read somewhere that hurricanes strike the Yucatan every 2 point something years. (Whatever article I was reading at the time mentioned that Texas is struck every 3 point something years.)

The flipped car that killed a child had to be going a little fast to flip. Even fleeing from a storm, speed is not safe.

And on and on in my mind.