Cuba reports “considerable” damage after the passage of Hurricane Ian; florida braces

Damage to homes, public buildings, factories, fields, tobacco crops and roads are part of the destruction left by Hurricane Ian as it passed through Cuba.

The storm, which hit the west of the island on Monday as a Category 3 storm, caused great damage, authorities said in a preliminary assessment on Tuesday, September 27.

“The damage is considerable. There are damages to homes, tobacco houses, interrupted roads, fallen trees,” said the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Yamile Ramos.

The National Hurricane Center of the United States ratified “significant impacts of winds and storm surges” in the west of the nation. The forecast agency added 4.3 meters of storm surge along the coast.

The eye of the hurricane, 32 kilometers in diameter, made landfall around 4:30 in the morning, local time, this Tuesday, September 27, in the Pinar del Río province, with winds exceeding 200 kilometers per hour.

In that region, the passage of the phenomenon caused the authorities to cut off the electricity supply to the entire province, with around one million inhabitants, as a precautionary measure.

There, 55 shelters were installed, around 50,000 people were evacuated, emergency personnel were sent and measures were taken to protect crops. It is the main tobacco-producing region of the country.

Mayelin Suárez, a resident of that region, said she was shocked after a night that she described as “the darkest of her life.”

“We almost lost the roof of our house (…) My daughter, my husband and I tied it with a rope so that it would not fly away,” he explained.

Makeshift metal roofs on homes and buildings across the region, where homes and infrastructure are old and vulnerable, were left strewn across streets and yards after the storm.

Fallen palm trees could be seen along the roads, making travel nearly impossible at the height of the storm.

Strong winds and rain hit Havana

The capital of the country was also impacted by the passage of Ian, with the record of strong winds and rainfall, although with less damage compared to the province of Pinar del Río.

“We are incredibly lucky that Ian did not cross Havana because more than half of the city would have collapsed,” said Félix Hernández, a night watchman at a liquor factory in the city.

The hurricane hit Cuba at a time of serious economic crisis. Even before the storm, blackouts lasting hours had become a daily occurrence for much of the country’s inhabitants.

Shortages of food, medicine and fuel are likely to complicate people’s efforts to recover from Ian’s aftermath.

In the last few hours, the phenomenon was approaching the north coast of Cuban territory, with maximum sustained currents of 200 kilometers per hour, the CNH reported.

Florida, Ian’s next stop

Climate prediction services indicate that the phenomenon would strengthen in category 4 among 5 levels of the Samir Simpson scale, before reaching Florida, United States. For this reason, the authorities ordered the evacuation of 2.5 million people before it makes landfall, predictably on Wednesday, September 28.

State Governor Ron DeSantis warned that damage is expected over a wide area, regardless of where Ian goes. The politician urged the population to prepare for power cuts and take shelter from the storm.

“When you have five to 10 feet of storm surge, that’s not something you want to be a part of… And Mother Nature has a very scary warning,” DeSantis said.

The NHC expanded its hurricane warning to include Bonita Beach, north through Tampa Bay, to the Anclote River. Fort Myers is in the hurricane zone, and Tampa and St. Petersburg could see their first direct hit from a major hurricane since 1921.

Storm surge could cause devastating or catastrophic damage with some places potentially uninhabitable for weeks or months, the National Weather Service has warned.

A warning echoed by Roger Desjarlais, administrator of Lee County, to which Fort Myers belongs.

“People on the barrier islands who decide not to leave do so at their own risk (…) With the kind of storm surge we’re talking about, it wouldn’t be unusual for both islands to get very flooded, and it’s a dangerous place to be. . By law, we cannot force people to leave the islands, but we strongly encourage them to leave,” he stressed.

For now, President Joe Biden also declared an emergency, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief and provide assistance to protect lives and property.

With Reuters, AP and local media