In La Coloma (Pinar del Río), where this Tuesday Hurricane Ian reached maximum strength on his way through the Island, there is only the desire to leave. “If my family gets out of this, they won’t have six months left in Cuba,” laments a Cuban resident in Miami who has her parents and her brother in the municipality of Pinar del Río.
The woman lost communication with them yesterday, but in the last call they told her that the roof of the house had been blown off and that the water was up to their knees. The family has animals and crops. “I’ve spent years insisting that they leave, but my father told me that he didn’t want to leave the farm, but now all that is destroyed and it will be cheaper for me to pay them to leave through Nicaragua than to rebuild their lives in La Coloma.”
Everyone fears that the true day after the cyclone, with more scarcity, is yet to come and, with it, an increase in the exodus, which already adds unprecedented figures for Cuba.
Havana is this Wednesday a city at half machine. Most of the capital’s neighborhoods woke up without electricity, the water supply has been aggravated by the lack of energy and Ian’s winds seem to have fueled inflation and rising food prices.
Everyone fears that the true day after the cyclone, with more scarcity, is yet to come and, with it, an increase in the exodus, which already adds up to unprecedented figures for Cuba.
“The bag of six buns arrived yesterday afternoon at 250 pesos, and at night it was 300 pesos,” says a resident of Los Sitios, who says that today “the vendors have not passed by and in the neighborhood there is speculation that when come back, it will cost even more.
In a tour of Central Havana, Old Havana and Nuevo Vedado, this newspaper witnessed dozens of gigantic trees uprooted by the force of the winds and lying in the middle of the street. “And that the cyclone did not pass through here,” commented an old woman in the Central Park.
In that place, in addition, there were several fallen streetlights.
Craving for food lost Even before the hurricane, it was the trend again in the streets of the capital, where numerous businesses could be seen trying to sell what they had left at the door, before they were spoiled by the lack of electricity after the collapse of the National System (SEN).
Cartmen here and there were one of the few options to buy food.
The windows of the Plaza de Carlos III were all boarded up, and not precisely because of the passage of the hurricane. This Monday, on the eve of Ian, they were uncovered, but this Wednesday they were protected, in all likelihood to prevent theft and destruction in the middle of the widespread blackout.
At the corner of Campanario and Condesa, in Centro Habana, a car had been destroyed by the remains of the old building that once stood there, today a huge parking lot. “Luckily it didn’t hit anyone’s head,” said the owner of the vehicle with resignation.
“The big trees are still lying there, because they need machinery and we still haven’t seen the State appear anywhere”
In Nuevo Vedado, the residents of some buildings were busy all day clearing their surroundings of fallen branches and bushes, but, as one of them lamented, “the big trees are still lying there, because they need machinery and we have not yet seen to the State anywhere”.
One of the main urgencies was to get connection for telephones, the fundamental tool of communication not only with family and friends, but with the world. Thus, the crowds connecting their mobiles in the corridors of hospitals, such as Calixto García or Hermanos Ameijeiras, as well as at the doors of the hotels.
Another of the concerns of Havanans today was water. Some buildings have a pump, but it stopped working when the SEN fell in the afternoon. Although in many apartments people have water tanks, as the hours go by, these are consumed.
For the higher floors, it is crazy to try to carry the water from below through the stairs, which, in addition, are wet and dirty with residues, some due to the lack of windows, for years.
For the higher floors, it is crazy to try to carry the water from below through the stairs, which, in addition, are wet and dirty with residues, some due to the lack of windows.
Meanwhile, in that same neighborhood, the power plant of the Ministry of Agriculture has been on for more than 24 hours and its buzz fills the entire place. “At least when we stop hearing it, we will know that the light has arrived,” a neighbor ironized.
This September 28, the day that the ruling party has traditionally destined to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), there has been no room for revelry or slogans of victory.
In Nuevo Vedado, an enthusiastic cederista yelled for long minutes at the neighbors of a 12-story building to collaborate with the traditional soup.
“Come on, let’s give a malanga, a cassava, a sweet potato for the broth! Or some money to go buy the farm!” A woman shouted for a long time, joined by a man with a powerful voice. : “Come on, for the CDR broth!”. The lack of enthusiasm and the inconvenience due to the lack of electricity hampered the collaborations and finally the enthusiastic organizers canceled the initiative.
On Tuesday night, after Ian’s winds died down, only a few points glowed in Havana. To the irony of the residents of the largest Cuban city, one of those luminous areas was Turkey’s floating power plant anchored in the port, a power plant full of lights in a darkened city
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