The Miami Herald.
Nov. 6, 2001
Western Cuba still blacked out after hurricane
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Half of Cuba was blacked out for a second night as the
communist government labored to repair its telecommunications network, battered
by Hurricane Michelle when it sliced across the island, killing at least five
people.
Residents of Havana were among millions of people whose homes were darkened
when authorities shut down power in western and central regions as Michelle
struck Cuba on Sunday afternoon. Many had no gas or water, either.
The hurricane, which killed 12 people in Honduras, Nicaragua and Jamaica
last week, lost some strength as it moved off Cuba, and it left Florida
virtually untouched. Authorities had ordered the Florida Keys evacuated.
Michelle swept past the Bahamas capital of Nassau on Monday with 85 mph
winds, flooding houses and cutting power. At 4 a.m. EST Tuesday, the storm was
centered about 552 miles southwest of Bermuda, where a tropical storm warning
was in effect.
In Cuba, damages to telephone lines and microwave antennae that provide
national long distance service snarled communications between Havana and
outlying regions.
Outgoing international telephone service was restored before dawn Monday,
but callers outside the country reported they were unable to call loved ones on
the island.
"I'm very worried because we don't know what happened to them,'' Isabel
Nunez, 55, of Elizabeth, N.J., said of her relatives in Cuba.
Although the power was shut off to prevent accidents during the storm, the
government said extensive repairs must be made before it can be safely restored.
When the storm made landfall on Cuba's southern coast, its winds were
estimated at 130 mph. Michelle caused at least 23 homes to collapse in Havana,
on the northern shore, state television reported -- and more were expected to
crumble as they dried out in the sun.
By Monday, the streets of the Cuban capital's colonial district were
littered with debris. Reporters who toured rural parts of Matanzas and Villa
Clara provinces east of Havana found hundreds homes damaged but only a few
destroyed.
"We were rebuilding the house,'' Jose Ramon Pedrozo said quietly as he
tried to rescue a few wooden planks that once formed part of his modest home in
Solis Viejo, a small town in hard-hit Matanzas. "Now we're going to start
all over.''
The narrow streets in Solis Viejo and other towns in the central Cuban
region were littered with palm branches and tiles blown off buildings. Downed
utility poles lay scattered in parks and front yards.
Some of the 750,000 people evacuated before the storm were being allowed to
return home by late Monday. Cuba's population is 11 million, with 2 million in
Havana.
Conditions in many parts of Cuba were unknown because of the communications
problems, making it difficult even for the government to assess the damage.
Michelle created an 18-foot storm surge on the island of Cayo Largo off
Cuba's south coast Sunday, but there was still no word on damage there a day
later.
On Monday afternoon, Cuba's National Defense confirmed five deaths
nationwide. Four people were killed in separate building collapses in Havana and
Matanzas province to the east. One man drowned in Playa Larga on the coast in
Matanzas, where Michelle made landfall.
President Fidel Castro toured several affected regions Monday and stopped at
the home of Elian Gonzalez, the boy at the center of a highly politicized child
custody battle last year involving the United States.
Castro greeted the Gonzalez family at their home in Cardenas, in Matanzas
province. Like many other Cuban homes, it was without electricity and other
basic services.
As he toured other parts of Matanzas province and Villa Clara province to
the east, Castro reiterated fears the storm damaged key crops including coffee,
citrus and sugar.
Castro's government has not provided a cost estimate of economic damage from
the storm, among the most powerful to strike Cuba in decades.
In the Bahamas, the hurricane unleashed stinging winds and sheets of rain
early Monday, prompting the evacuation of some people from low-lying Cat Island,
east of Nassau.
There were no reports of deaths in the Bahamas, but Michelle's winds ripped
roofs off several wooden houses and tore down traffic lights. At Nassau
International Airport, some small planes were tossed across the tarmac.
Power was out for most residents of Andros Island and the main island of New
Providence, where Nassau is located. But by Monday afternoon, the storm had
ed Nassau, and some children came out to play in flood waters 3 feet deep in
some areas.
Before moving to the Bahamas, the hurricane's outer winds brushed Florida,
where a tropical storm warning was lifted Monday afternoon for the Atlantic
coast from the Upper Keys to the West Palm Beach area.
In the Cayman Islands, Michelle whipped up storm surges that caused an
undetermined amount of property damage along the western coast, the government
said.
Storm kills five, causes extensive damage in Cuba
By Nancy San Martin. [email protected]
Whipping across Cuba with 135 mph winds, Hurricane Michelle killed at least
five people, damaged resorts and destroyed crops mostly in the central part of
the island, officials said Monday.
Four of the five confirmed deaths occurred in Havana's neighboring province
of Matanzas, one of the first regions to bear the brunt of a storm with
ferocious winds that uprooted trees, tore down electrical cables, destroyed
homes and caused extensive damage to agricultural fields, authorities said.
President Fidel Castro acknowledged the potential economic devastation,
saying that while physical damages caused by Michelle were worrisome, "of
more concern is the economic hurricane that is bearing down on us.''
Speaking on national television, Castro also said the hurricane "surely
has done damage to all agriculture -- to sugar cane, to forests, to plantains,''
he said. "It's another blow.''
In addition to Matanzas, Michelle was strongly felt in other central
provinces, including Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Sancti Spíritus, all
east of Havana. The storm also battered central-western Cuba with sustained
winds of 125 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
AMONG THE DEAD
Matanzas resident Jorge Calvo Armenteros, a 39-year-old driver for a
chemical factory, was among the dead.
He was trying to find a radio station to keep abreast of the oncoming
hurricane when fierce winds caused a brick wall on the second floor of the
decaying home to collapse on him.
"I heard a tremendous noise. It was like a bomb,'' said Calvo's
sister-in-law Arelis Ramos, 20. "It was horrible.''
Calvo was rushed to the hospital but died hours later. On Monday, relatives
prepared for a funeral as government workers cleared mountains of rubble and
tree branches that lined the street in their neighborhood.
"He was someone who got along with everyone,'' Ramos said, as she
carried a red rose in a plastic container and a white candle to the vigil at a
home few blocks away. "He never thought anything would happen.''
On the outlying key of Cayo Largo, where Michelle created an 18-foot storm
surge, many of the hotels had windows shattered and roofs damaged, according to
ham operators in Miami-Dade who monitored activities on the island Monday.
"Eighty percent of the windows were smashed and 60 percent of the roofs
were damaged,'' said Osvaldo Pla, who works out of Brothers to the Rescue
offices in Coral Gables. "There are reports of a lot of flooding and
problems at tourist resorts.''
EFFECTS ON TOURISM
The effects on tourism could be the biggest fallout from the Category 4
storm.
The tourism industry -- Cuba's most important source of hard currency --
already has been hit by a decline in the global market and a drop in visitors as
a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Most of the deaths, like Calvo's, were attributed to building collapses.
They included a 32-year-old woman in the Havana neighborhood of Arroyo Grande
and a 33-year-old man and a 98-year-old woman in Jagüey Grande, in central
Matanzas province.
The fifth death was a 60-year-old man who drowned in Playa Larga on the
coast of Matanzas.
Other areas were hit by flooding that resembled rivers, as well as high
winds that caused serious structural damage. In Corralillo, a small town north
of Santa Clara, at least 300 homes were battered, many of them completely
flattened, according to news reports in the government-run media.
The storm also caused 23 homes to collapse in Havana, state television
reported. More are expected to crumble as they dry out in the sun, officials
said.
Residents across the western half of the island remained without electricity
Monday. Telephone service was spotty. Most of the estimated 750,000 people who
had been evacuated before the storm still had not been allowed to return home by
Monday afternoon.
The rain had cleared in most of Cuba by daybreak, but there were reports of
heavy downpours in Cuba's easternmost provinces of Santiago and Guantánamo
as Michelle moved to the northeast.
The hurricane touched ground at Playa Girón around 4 p.m. Sunday and
shot past the island near Sagua la Grande in Villa Clara province early Monday.
By dawn, Havana was bustling with cars, bicycles, and pedestrians surveying
the damage.
Large blocks of concrete that had been torn by crashing waves from the Malecón,
Havana's famed seawall, lay scattered along the city's rainslick thoroughfare.
SWEEPING WATER
In central Havana, where flooding rose to waist-high levels, workers swept
water into drainage holes at the adjacent Hospital Hermanos Ameijeiras.
"What has to be done has to be done,'' said a 40-year-old man whose
black loafers were soaked through while he and dozens of others armed with
brooms tried to rid the streets of water. They expected to be sweeping water for
the next two days.
As the sun began to shine on the drenched capital, people ambled through the
streets of Old Havana, Vedado and Miramar checking on neighbors. The skies were
calm, the sun bright and the wind nippy, though menacing waves continued to
crash along the coastline.
Several groups of children took advantage of gusty winds near the university
in Matanzas to fly kites.
Just 24 hours earlier the scene was starkly different.
Michelle was the strongest hurricane to hit the island in decades.
STRONG STORMS
Although Cubans are accustomed to hurricane scares, it had not experienced
one as strong in recent times. The closest came in 1996 when Hurricane Lili, a
Category 3 storm, wiped out crops and left thousands homeless.
Hurricane Flora, in 1963, was the fifth deadliest hurricane ever. It left a
total of about 7,186 dead, including 1,750 in Cuba and about 5,000 in Haiti.
But the deadliest storm struck the island on Nov. 9, 1932, flattening the
town of Santa Cruz del Sur and killing about 3,000 people.
The memories of those storms caused many to breathe a sigh of relief after
Michelle moved on.
"I thought it would be much more disastrous'' said Minerva Cabrera, 37.
"Not much happened here in the end.''
A Herald staff writer in Cuba contributed to this report, which was
supplemented with Herald wire services.
Five dead in Cuba in wake of Michelle
Herald Staff & Associated Press
HAVANA -- Civil Defense authorities say Hurricane Michelle killed at least
five people in Cuba. No details were available yet.
The hurricane spared Havana serious damage, leaving only spot flooding,
downed trees and electrical cables, but hammered the eastern provinces of
Matanzas, Villa Clara and Cienfuegos.
Winds at 175 kilometers per hour likely devastated tomato and tobacco fields
and other agricultural sectors, President Fidel Castro announced on Cuban
National Television while visting Matanzas in the pre-dawn hours.
Hurricane Michelle touched ground at Playa Giron in Cienfuegos at 3:50 p.m.
Sunday and left land near Sagua la Grande in Villa Clara sometime early this
morning.
By dawn, Havana was bustling with cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, who
surveyed the damage. Large blocks of cement lay scattered along the city's
rainslick northern highway, the Malecón, torn from its concrete wall by
crashing waves. Workers swept water into drainage holes at a hospital in central
Hava where flooding was waist high just hours earlier.
"What has to be done has to be done,'' said a 40-year-old man whose
black loafers were soaked through while he and dozens of other workers swept
water with a broom. They expect to be sweeping water for the next two days.
A tour of the city revealed no fallen buildings or broken glass, but many
downed cables and trees. Children played atop a Majagua tree, uprooted through a
cement sidewalk on 27th Street in Vedado. Several blocks to the south, resident
Juan Carlos Jiménez stared at the giant trunk of a fallen tree that had
landed squarely through his wrought iron fence.
"We're relieved nothing happened to the family or the house,'' said Jiménez,
50, as he bent down to retrieve fallen branches. "Many more trees could
have fallen.''
By 9 a.m. the sun emerged as people began to return to their routines. A
funeral procession ed through Playa at 9:30 a.m. People ambled through the
streets of Old Havana, Vedado, Playa and Miramar checking on neighbors.
Just 24 hours earlier the scene was starkly different.
In preparation for the storm, Cuba's civil defense ministry evacuated
604,594 people according to radio and television reports -- the largest
evacuation in the country's history. The government reported that 70,000 Cubans
volunteered in the evacuation effort, which deployed some 5,000 vehicles.
By early Sunday afternoon, reports emerged that the hurricane's eye was
turned east of Havana, headed for Villa Clara. Still, the city's streets were
barren as seventy-mile-per hour winds howled and the sky grew dark.
Twelve-foot waves slammed against the Malecón as fishermen fought
heavy winds to move the last of 28 boats to safer ground.
"This could be a rough storm or a soft one. You never know how it will
hit,'' said fisherman Angel Carretero, 52, as he hauled one of two remaining
boats to the nearby Catedral plaza, where the others had been tied onto tires
with rope. "This isn't the best place but it's the best we have,'' he said.
On Monday, the boats remained intact.
Most of the city had been without electricity or gas since late Sunday
morning, thuogh telephone lines were restored by Monday morning.
An estimated 37,000 Havana residents had been evacuated from instable homes
or low-lying neighborhoods by Sunday evening. Roughly 110,000 more in the Havana
province had moved to shelters or more secure locations.
Nearly 7,000 people were evacuated from Old Havana alone, half of whom
stayed in state-sponsored shelters. Hundreds filtered into a former monastery on
Compostela Street seeking shelter.
Marile Cespedes, 42, waited nervously for a bus that would take her and her
nine year old son Feliberto to a shelter away from their small tin-roofed home
on 72nd Street in Playa, where a large tree had already fallen. "I had to
leave everything behind,'' she said, holding only a battery-powered radio. "It's
really hard.''
Minutes later a long red bus stopped to retireve her and several other
neighbors while making its last rounds to the shelters.
Across the street, Maria de Los Angeles Reyes opted to ride the storm out in
her tall, decaying, 1920s era home. "I'm very scared of hurricanes,'' said
Reyes, 63. But her family was well prepared, with kerosene lamps and stoves,
where they were cooking large pots of rice and beans to last five days.
Hundreds of tourists -- left without power in their rooms -- climbed down
dark stairwells to the Vedado-based Hotel Habana Libre's lobby and watched
through windows as trees bent horizantally in the wind. By 6 p.m. hurricane
force winds were howling through the city, drowning out the hum of conversation
in the hotel(s4)s La Rampa cafe as people quietly stared outside.
"I stayed in Havana because I had no choice,'' said Spaniard Pedro
Antepazo Paredes, 29, who had been vacationing in Varadero, a beachside town
east of Havana. "I feel okay in the hotel. I wouldn't like to be outside.''
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