Chicagoans struggle to contact relatives living near Acapulco after Cat. 5 hurricane hits Mexico

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Many people in Chicago who have relatives living in the Acapulco area have not heard from them since Category 5 Hurricane Otis made landfall overnight in Mexico.

It's been hard for Christian Moreno to focus on work Wednesday. He is the owner of The Art of Chicken in Bucktown.

Even as Moreno continued to take orders from customers, his mind was more than 2,000 miles away in a coastal town, where he has family who live near the Mexican port city of Acapulco.

"It's in the back of your head," Moreno said. "I still have my grandma there. Uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews."

Chicago is home to More than 350,000 State of Guerrero natives, which is more than any other city besides Acapulco, according to the Mexican Consulate. While not everyone from that population living in Chicago are from the coast, many of them know somebody who lives there.

So far, all calls and texts from Chicago to Mexico remain unanswered.

"I have a lot of friends. They are academics. They live in Acapulco," said Clubes Unidos Guerrerenses President Erasmo Salgado. "And some friends, some family of my friends, they not answer right now."

There was a similar story at Casa Guerrero in Hermosa. Evodio Flores has dozens of relatives still living in the Acapulco area. He's still shocked at the drastic turn of events that saw a tropical storm grow into a Category 5 Hurricane in just about 24 hours.

"They only have the pictures of the beautiful sides of Acapulco," Flores said. "Lets hope it didn't hit so hard, the other communities, the lower income communities. Right now, we're kind of worried, but hoping that everything, that they get shelter. Because they were not prepared."

Until the phones start working again in the Acapulco area, the uncertainty for relatives in Chicago will only intensify.

"It's not in Acapulco, but it's there right. So the fear of something drastic that may have happened," Moreno said.