Good morning Gossi LUV: Alamos is situated in a shallow valley with high mountains to the south west. The Principal drainage goes through the center of the town with many many homes on the flood plains leading into Alamos from the west.
The hurricane generated what locals call "choros" as it crested the ridge of the mountain. There were 10 of them simultaneously, equivalent to giant water hoses spewing out a high pressure stream of water perhaps 2o - 30 ft wide that simply scoured the earth down to bed rock. This tremendous amount of water, added to the normal hurricane's fall, entered two main drainages. The one to the west took out 4 modern concrete bridges. The main flow entered the flood plains leading into Alamos and simply eliminated any sign of houses before entering Alamos itself with a 20 -30 ft wall of water, an enormous flash flood. The main arroyo is in the center of Alamos.
As it entered Alamos, itself, the wall of water was reduced to 6 -7 ft only, but it took people on the street and all vehicles with it. Where it exited, it left vehicles almost exactly like domino's stacked up vertically, sometimes 5 - 7 in a row.
I was lucky, my small home in Alamos is on a small side street. Because of the splitting of the water force, , I only had 3 ft of water in front of the house, nothing entered to ruin my nice new tile floors and furniture. However my nearby neighbors weren't so lucky, they had 5 - 6 ft of water entering their homes. Most lost everything except the house itself, which in most cases, was severely damaged. As a result water, sewer, and electrical services were destroyed.
The Mexican gov't was marvelous, within 24 hrs they had food, water, & medical services in town by helicopter,, and that afternoon, 400 soldiers at our disposal to help dig out. I have no idea how they accomplished it, but by wendsday they had restored water, which had to be purified of course, and yesterday, electricity. They brought in 20 backhoes, and bulldozers and proceeded to clean out some 2 ft of mud and sand from the streets so that some order and clean up could be started.
The no of dead and missing will never be known since it was on sunday, about 11:00 pm, there were many celebrations going on. At the entering of the water to the main arroyo,some 3 miles west of the town, there was a fiesta of some 50 people with musicians in the arroyo, they are not accounted for? 20 Meters from where I park my car, they found a small girl, her mother & father, buried under 3 ft of sand and mud. Just now they found a car with 4 adults and two small girls also, the vehicle was buried under the sand, and they, frankly, were a bit ripe. They were promptly buried without proper identification, that will come later with the vehicle registration.
There is a standing reward of $50 for each body found or recovered. Most never will be found since they might lay anywhere for miles down below buried in sand or mud..
Sigh, life can be interesting no? Aren't you glad that you weren't here now?
Will post a few pictures later if you wish. Incidentally, Alamos had been declared a United Nations heritage site because of it's 1700 & 1800 periods of types of contruction, beauty and it's cleanliness.. Most of the larger homes were reconstructions identical with the original. My home, for example, has adobe walls some 4 ft thick. They say that the President and the Gov. of Sonora almost cried when they first flew over it to inspect.
This is my excuse for not posting.
Don Jose de La Mancha