Havana/Indifferent to internal crises and external tensions, the forces of nature continue stubbornly on their path, sometimes unpredictable, other times not so much. Thus the Atlantic in front of Havana in the winter months, jumping the Malecón and extending through several streets.
The image of the ocean forming a wall of white foam against the stone wall has been repeated in the most idyllic photographs of the capital, those in which, facing west, the old profile is seen – without the Tower K– which formed the Habana Libre hotel, the Nacional or the Focsa building and, heading south, the Morro lighthouse. In practice, every year is a problem, especially for traffic and residents of nearby areas.
/ 14ymedio
“The wind almost carried me. Tremendous air. The water reaches 3rd floor, and from D to there. You can’t get there because everything is flooded,” a resident of the Girón building, on Malecón and F, laments to this newspaper, who could not go out this Monday to buy food.
From your balcony, in fact, you can see the waves breaking and the water penetrating without restrictions. The empty avenue is not, this time, just because of the storm. “With the critical shortage of fuel, there is no need to even cut off traffic,” the man says ironically. The streets carry a month almost emptywith very few foreign tourists, which in any case offer a brutal contrast with an exhausted and aging population.
“It has not been the worst or the most serious of the floods, but it has come to us at the worst time: with problems in the water supply, without electricity since last night, with the garbage dump on the corner that almost reaches half a block and, to top it all off, with almost no internet access to communicate with the family and tell them that we are fine,” says a Havana resident on 1st and C.
Seeing the ocean this free is even beautiful. Some dare to say: “It is not the only invasion we expect.”
