Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services

Hay River (Oct 28/05) - For Melanie and Shawn Carter their 10th anniversary will be hard to top.

The Hay River couple was celebrating with a vacation in Mexico when Hurricane Wilma hit.

The two were staying on the coast at the El Dorado Royale resort near Playa del Carmen. Their first hurricane warning came from Shawn's mother, Linda, who phoned on Wednesday, Oct. 19.

We spent the day booking airplane tickets out of Cancun for Thursday, Melanie said.

The next morning the hotel told us and the other 800 guests we had under two hours to get ready to be evacuated. We were allowed to bring a pillow, a blanket, a roll of toilet paper and one carry on bag. If we tried to bring anything else they said they would take it away, she said.

Unsure of what to do, the couple decided to stay with the hotel group.

"We feel in hindsight it was a really good decision," Carter said.

At 1 p.m. they were loaded onto tour buses and driven eight hours towards the northwest to Merida. They were housed in a hotel for a for a few days and then moved to a university where they slept in classrooms with 30 other people. "We feel really fortunate," Carter said.

They had access to running water, computers, two phones and electricity. The food lasted until Saturday morning when we got mashed potatoes for breakfast and 10 tortilla chips with cheese sauce for lunch, she said.

"The hurricane wasn't super scary" Carter said.

Merida only received high winds and rain downpours. The humidity was high and it felt like we had constant sinus headaches, said Carter. Someone told her they were caused by the falling barometric pressure.

When the Carter's were told they were free to go on Saturday afternoon they ran to a computer and booked a flight for Sunday.

They returned to Hay River on Oct. 19 with only the clothes they wore when they left the resort. "We're relieved to get back," she said.