Against the clock as Hurricane Melissa approaches: Cubans dedicate themselves to reinforcing their homes

Havana / Holguín /“I’ve spent the day nailing doors and windows,” he tells 14ymedio a resident of the city of Holguín. He adds that they are preparing with what they can to survive Hurricane Melissa, although they have not had time to follow the details of its path, due to the weak internet connection and blackouts. His house has masonry walls, but he doesn’t want anything to surprise him and put his family at risk.

Melissa made landfall this Tuesday near New Hope, Jamaica, with maximum sustained winds of 298 kilometers. A probe managed to capture a gust of 406 km/h inside the hurricane. Its central pressure dropped to 892 hectoPascal, which is why it remains a dangerous category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, while it heads towards eastern Cuba.

At least 7 people have died so far: 3 in Jamaica, 3 in Haiti and 1 in the Dominican Republic. Authorities fear the toll could rise as more reports of damage come in.

From Jamaica, a Cuban doctor wrote in their networks social: “I tell the Easterners: this is too much for Cuba. It is too much for you, my dear people.”

In the municipality of Palma Soriano, province of Santiago de Cuba, Katia, 51, claims that no one has slept in her house: “We removed the mattresses from the beds and sent them to the house of neighbors who have a home that is stronger than ours, we did the same with the refrigerator,” the woman tells by telephone. 14ymedio. The family has outlined two clear priorities: keeping the children safe and preserving their most valuable assets.

“We are not going to evacuate because here when people leave their homes, the danger of being robbed is high,” he says. “These walls are strong, our problem is the roof, one part of which is made of plate and the other has a light covering.” They have blocked the blinds with boards, they try to keep the water tank, located above the bathroom, full so that the wind does not blow it away, and they avoid using up the batteries of the rechargeable lamps and cell phones.

With a hearing aid placed on her cell phone, to act as an antenna, Niurka can listen to FM radio stations in the area. “This has been our luck because here we have had many blackouts in recent days and being informed has been difficult, at least we now know that the bug comes here and has an impressive size,” details about Melissa.

In the city of Holguín it is difficult this Tuesday to find something to buy. “Yesterday people carried everything they could, in front of the MSMEs that sell food there were lines, wheelbarrows and tricycles carrying boxes and large packages,” says Rodolfo, driver of an electric vehicle that transports passengers and goods. The man decided not to go out to work today because he prefers to spend his time reinforcing the security of his house.

“Luckily my little house is attached to others and that protects us,” he explains. “I spend my life complaining about the neighbors who play the music too loud and sometimes they even wake up my child with their screams, but today that is the greatest security I have against the winds.” In the event that the electricity is cut off for several days and food becomes more scarce, neighborhood solidarity will also be important.

“In previous hurricanes we have improvised a pot on the block to prepare soups and that has saved us,” he remembers. On this occasion this support will be more than important. “There are many old people alone in this neighborhood, some have evacuated to other houses but there is no one to take others out of their place, so we are going to have to take turns giving them a tour.”

Rodolfo’s sister, a recently graduated doctor, is evacuated to the “Vladímir Ilich Lenin” General University Hospital along with other health workers. “He took a couple of changes of clothes because things could take a long time.” The tricycle with which the man from Holguín makes his living now occupies most of the space in the room. “Normally I keep it in a little room I have outside, but this time I can’t take the risk, if a bush falls on it I’ll lose my way of making a living.”

Your decision coincides with the advice you offer on Facebook a Guantanamo architect with experience in natural disasters. The expert warns that winds of 250 to 300 km/h are strong enough to destroy even reinforced concrete houses, so no one should underestimate their power. It also explains that wooden or masonry homes with light roofs are extremely vulnerable, since the wind can tear off roofs and knock down structures, especially in rural areas or isolated buildings. In these cases, the recommendation is to evacuate immediately to safe places, without assuming that thick walls or concrete walls will guarantee protection.

Only concrete houses with heavy roofs and in good structural condition could offer some security, as long as they are away from the coast. In coastal areas or where the sea is less than 200 meters away, even solid houses must be evacuated, as the waves can cause greater damage than the wind, the specialist says.

This Tuesday, the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, who chairs the National Defense Council, released a statement calling to avoid deaths and serious damage in the face of the next impact of the powerful Hurricane Melissa in the east of the Island.

“We know that there will be a lot of damage that this cyclone will cause, but we will have the capacity to recover in food production, in the recovery of housing, and also in the recovery of the economy,” the president said in a message broadcast on state television.

“No one ventures to bathe in the swollen rivers, no one returns from the evacuation places to their homes, when the instructions to return or to go to the recovery phase in each of the territories have not yet been given,” advised the first secretary of the Communist Party, who described the preparation work at all levels as “intense and responsible.”

For his part, the opponent José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) and recently exiled in Miami, shared a video sent from Santiago de Cuba where “the hammer blows of people trying to secure their homes to be able to face the passage of Hurricane Melissa” can be heard. In that province, some 168,900 people have been evacuated, in 101 centers set up for that purpose.

The actress Dayana Figueroa, known on the networks as Yaya Panoramix, denounced on her Facebook wall a garbage dump that threatens to cause obstructions in the sewer system of her native neighborhood, in Santiago de Cuba, “a few blocks from Parque Céspedes.” He assures that the neighbors called community officials, but “they responded that the truck is not going to pass, there is no fuel and those that work are going to Guamá.” Aware that his neighborhood often floods, he concluded: “My family is in danger.”

From Yateras, in Guantánamo, pro-government profiles defend the use of caves in the mountains to house the vulnerable population. Meanwhile, Melissa is moving north-northeast and has slightly increased its speed to 15 kilometers per hour. It is expected to lose some strength as it passes through Jamaica and to arrive in less category on Cuban lands between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Over the next 24 hours, Melissa should tilt its trajectory more toward the northeast, gradually increasing its translational speed. The outer bands of this hurricane are already affecting the eastern region of Cuba, generating showers and rains, which will become numerous from the afternoon from Camagüey to Guantánamo. Precipitation will be strong and intense, mainly in mountainous areas, with between 200 and 450 millimeters accumulated in the next 24 hours.