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the night of the 9th October 2025, in the Emergency Operations Center of the Otomí-Tepehua Regional Hospital of the IMSS-Bienestar, about 10 kilometers from San Bartolo Tutotepec, a brief signal, just a few seconds, interrupted all communications.
In the radio log it was recorded: Azimuth 115°, from Tulancingo to San Bartolo Tutotepec.
No one knew it yet, but that coordinate would mark the beginning of one of the worst floods in the state’s recent memory. The hills opened as if they were breathing, the rivers broke out of their banks and the medical routes were cut off one after another.
An old hospital technician, a Civil Protection veteran, then remembered a story: in 1939, before the tanks crossed the Polish border, the fascist army tested a similar jamming system to silence enemy frequencies. “When the air is silent,” he said, “something big is about to break.”
And it broke.
At 9:10 p.m. the auxiliary power system was activated; At 9:18 p.m., the hospital was isolated. In the boardroom, converted into an operational center, maintenance engineers drew the backup map on a blackboard with oxygen levels, supply routes and diesel reserves. Outside, the rain was a metal wall.
The doctor on duty asked for reports from the lowest communities – El Coyol, Zapotitlán and El Nopalillo – but none responded. The antennas were out of service. The hospital then became something more than its structure: a center of gravity for an isolated region.
At dawn, the brigades began to organize by the light of the lanterns. The mass care protocol was activated: classification by color, fluid control, priority for deliveries and chronic patients. The nurses improvised a manual record with plastic-wrapped pens.
At 3:12 a.m. the first vehicle arrived from Tutotepec with three people injured by a landslide: two children with bruises and an older man who had left his house barefoot when the water reached his waist.
He walked through stones and roots until he reached the road. The skin on his feet was open, as if the mud had torn it off. In the emergency room, the doctors performed a surgical scrub and let him rest, oblivious to the noise and vertigo of the hospital.
“It is the closest thing to a war, but without a visible enemy,” said a doctor.
On the blackboard, between marks of humidity, it was still written: Azimuth 115°.
For hours, the hospital was sustained by its own breathing. The water did not give in, but the system resisted among brigades, volunteers, doctors and nurses. Until, at dawn, a new signal cut through the interference.
From the air, Armed Forces helicopters traced routes over the valleys; On land, Welfare and Health trucks advanced along newly opened roads; Vaccination modules were installed next to the surgical tents. The joint operation took shape.
The response was immediate and total. The State was articulated as a single body: Army, Navy, Welfare, Health, Energy, all under the same coordination. There were no fragments or excuses. There was action.
In the midst of the mud and silence, the President was there. He supervised the installation of the medical tents, reviewed the operation of the mobile units and gave precise instructions to reinforce the work in the communities.
It was not a visit, but rather a direct drive from the territory.
His presence was not symbolic: it was operational. He listened to diagnoses, gave orders and asked that no one be left without care or medication, even if each box had to be blown up.
When he left, the radio technician turned the transmitter back on. On the screen, the signal indicator marked the green line again.
The air had stopped being silent.
