Acapulco resort town hammered by Hurricane Otis

The resort town of Acapulco was struck by Hurricane Otis, a thunderous storm that made landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast on Wednesday.

The storm is considered one of the most severe to strike the Pacific side of the Mexican peninsula, in the state of Guerrero.

Mexican officials are trying to determine the level of damage, but little information has surfaced since 30% of Guerrero homes lost power, and the storm effectively knocked out communications in the area.

The storm was considered so severe that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is currently visiting the city. The president had to reach the area by land since local airports were closed.

The president had to disembark from his vehicle at one stage and walk to reach the wreckage since there was too much debris on the highway from mudslides.

“The army is bringing machinery and we're going to try to reopen [the highway] as soon as possible,” López Obrador told local media.

As of Thursday morning there were no reports about a death toll, but Mexican officials have admonished the media that they have just begun to uncover the damage since phone service has been cut off.

They are still trying to assess the damage in hard to reach areas also blocked by debris.

Some photos and video surfaced from Acapulco tourists who showed the storm trashing buildings, leaving streets flooded, roofs blown off and windows cracked and shattered.

The facade of a shopping center in Acapulco was ripped off, and some videos depicted hotel guests hiding in windowless restrooms so they would not be injured by flying glass.

The country’s ministry of defense told the public that 8,000 soldiers had been mobilized to the resort town and others along the Pacific coast to help find survivors and restoring the area.

Hurricane Otis made landfall shortly after midnight local time on Wednesday. In just 12 hours, it intensified from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane with 165 mile per hour winds.

One Acapulco tourist workers, Citlali Portillo, told Televisa TV that their “building shook as if there was an earthquake.”

As the storm moved inland, it began slowing down, but the country’s meteorological service warned that torrential downpours would potentially flood Guerrero and neighboring Mexican states.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported that the storm could "produce flash and urban flooding, along with mudslides in areas of higher terrain."