Mexican getaway loses its romance

MERIDA, Mexico — They were going to beachfront chapels to get married, celebrate wedding anniversaries, or just to relax.

Hurricane Wilma, however, drove them from the emerald Caribbean resort of Cancún on Thursday. They ended up some 200 miles to the west, at a university that's become a shelter for nearly 1,000 American, Canadian, British and Italian tourists.

"We got married Oct. 15 and went to Cancún for our honeymoon, and we've been here ever since," said David Darmody of Raynham, Conn., as he and his wife, Lisa, sat on lawn chairs and watched the dark sky for any sign of when they might be able to go home.

The nearly 1,000 evacuees left Cancún in buses. Hotel staff members gave them no time to pack their bags. They could bring only blankets, pillows and toiletries.

The first stop, on Thursday night, was the fancy Hotel Reef Telchac, right on the Gulf of Mexico.

Then it was time to go again.

"We had to evacuate again, and again we couldn't bring anything," said Tampa, Fla., truck driver Tony Fabiani, who'd just married his sweetheart, Robin, a physical therapist.

An argument was already brewing between the newlywed Fabianis, who thought Robin might be pregnant.

"If it's a girl, I want her name to be Wilma. Just think of the stories we can tell our grandchildren," Tony Fabiani said.

"No way in the world my daughter is going to be named after this monster," answered Robin.

Roni Hainebach, who lives in a kibbutz in northern Israel on the border with Lebanon and Syria, waited for a flight at the Merida airport — any flight. She's a hurricane veteran, and her tale is stranger than fiction.

On Oct. 11, she flew to Cancún, then went to Cuba, where Hurricane Rita struck and she had to hang around for eight days. She next got a flight to Guatemala, but she got stuck there after Hurricane Stan hit Central America and Mexico.

Then, "when Wilma caught us," she got a flight from Guatemala to Playa del Carmen.

She was supposed to meet her husband in Madrid.

Like many others, Hainebach told stories of love among the Mayan ruins.

"In Playa del Carmen, we saw a wedding party of 40 people, and just when the loving couple was about to say, 'I do,' officials said they had to evacuate. The couple pleaded, 'Please let us say, 'I do!' "

But no go. The bride and groom were flown to Cancún, and they insisted on getting married there, but the same thing happened.

"They had to evacuate," said Hainebach. "The wife said, 'I guess God doesn't want us to get married.' "