I went back in Google News and tried to find warnings for Acapulco before the storms made landfall, but couldn't find any. I don't think anyone in Acapulco was really aware of what might happen. And Manuel was "only" a tropical storm when it came onshore from the Pacific. I think it lingered a lot longer than expected and ended up dumping a LOT of rain on the region. And of course, you had Hurricane Ingrid coming ashore from the Gulf side.

Changing tack a bit, but the super typhoon in the Pacific, Onagi, has some potential. If you go by barometric pressure, I believe a BBC article I read said that this is the most intense storm on the planet since 1984. As someone else said, it intensified from a run of the mill tropical storm in the blink of the eye.