Hurricane Otis: Category 5 storm effects and cascading hazards in Acapulco Bay, Mexico
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Hurricane Otis, a Category 5 storm, made landfall in Acapulco, Mexico, on October 25, 2023, with sustained winds of 270 km/h and wind gusts up to 330 km/h. Its unprecedented rapid intensification, attributed to record-high sea surface temperatures, marked it as the strongest storm to hit the region in the satellite era. This study documents the geomorphic, infrastructural, and socio-political impacts of the event, highlighting extensive coastal erosion, sediment deposition, and cascading hazards such as landslides and flooding. Coastal changes included severe beach erosion, overwash effects, and delta formation. Notably, beaches like Revolcadero experienced erosion exceeding 76 meters, while scoured channels and widened tidal inlets transformed coastal geomorphology. Beyond physical alterations, the hurricane caused widespread infrastructure damage, displacing over 34,500 families and affecting more than 560,000 residents. Economic losses are estimated at over $15 billion USD, with significant impacts on hotels, residential buildings, transportation networks, and commercial establishments. The event revealed substantial gaps in disaster preparedness, as limited warnings and delayed responses worsened the socio-economic impact. Stagnant water and poor sanitation caused disease outbreaks, while inadequate aid distribution highlighted systemic inequities. The findings stress the urgent need for better disaster management, including early warning systems, equitable aid, and climate adaptation to address escalating risks from extreme weather intensified by climate change. By examining the geomorphic, infrastructural, and socio-political consequences of Hurricane Otis, this study emphasizes the necessity of proactive resilience measures to mitigate the long-term risks posed by such unprecedented cascading hazards. • Hurricane Otis was the strongest storm to hit Acapulco, with 270 km/h winds. • The storm caused >76 m beach erosion, scoured channels, and coastal reshaping. • Otis triggered cascading hazards, including flooding, landslides, and vegetation loss. • Economic losses topped $15 billion USD, displacing 34,500 families and affecting many. • Findings stress urgent need for climate adaptation, prevention, and disaster resilience strategies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".