BAJA CALIFORNIA, Mexico — Nicole Willis and Nathan Kesler have been diving the waters around Bahía de los Ángeles for 13 years. Nothing could have prepared them for what happened as the remnants of Hurricane Hilary ravaged the Baja California.
"I've never been through anything like this before," Willis said. "I live in Arizona, where we don't have earthquakes. We don't have things like this, you know, just some flooding once in a while. But it's not nearly ever this bad. I woke, when I was woken up, the water was up to the middle part of the stairs."
The pair was staying at Hotel Villa Bahia when water started to rush through the area.
Those same floodwaters pushed their truck out to the ocean. Military members helped tow the truck back to shore but the truck said is a total loss, Willis said.
"When it hit us the other night, you know, middle of the night, nothing to see or expect coming until the water was flooding the rooms and stuff," Kesler said. "And at that point, you just run for higher ground. You're in the upper floors of all the buildings just trying to keep everyone safe."
The morning after the flooding, the entire area is filled with mud. Several buildings on the beachfront property are severely damaged or completely destroyed. Among all the devastation, Willis and Kesler said they are thankful for the support for everyone in the community.
"It's amazing," Willis said. "These people just lost everything. And literally, the first thing they do is clean up the kitchen so that they can make sure that we have food. That was their number one concern. They're amazing people here, out of everything they just lost. They want to make sure that we have food."
Kesler echoed those sentiments.
"By the time we are all up, coming down here trying to gather our senses, they're already shoveling out the dirt and mud from the kitchen, getting the generator up and running so they can power up the kitchen and feed us," he said. "That's their main concern."
For now, clean up has begun for the hotel and residents in the nearby area. Kesler said the area was just beginning to get back on its feet after recovering from a previous hurricane that hit the shore. Now they will have to start the rebuild process again.
PHOTOS: Flooding in Bahía de los Ángeles
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