Hurricane Ian | Cuba waiting for full power return

(Havana) Recharge your mobile phone, find a place in the neighbor’s freezer: while waiting for the electricity to be fully restored, the Cubans tried Thursday to deal with the most urgent, two days after the passage of the hurricane Ian which plunged the country into darkness.

“I’m trying to find a solution, I’m calling to see who has electricity and could save me some of the chicken that I have here (in the freezer) and which is about to expire”, tells AFP Maria Fernandez, a 68-year-old retiree in her house in the Santos Suarez district of Havana.

The powerful Category 3 hurricane that hit the country on Tuesday killed three people and caused extensive damage in the west of the country. It also caused a blackout across the island of 11.2 million people.

Maria Fernandez uses her landline phone because the “mobile is empty and the signal is intermittent”, she says.

Lazaro Herrera, an official of the public electricity company, Union Electrica (UNE), told state television that part of the capital already had power, but the “rest is still waiting for the certification of the lines, like the provinces of Artemisa and Pinar del Rio (west)”, the hardest hit by the hurricane.

A good part of the inhabitants of the eastern provinces of Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas and Camagüey, which were not affected, have also regained electricity.

Cuba’s electricity grid is powered by eight large power plants, electric generators and a few solar and wind units.

Protests

Dozens of people took to the streets of the Cerro neighborhood in Havana on Thursday evening to protest against the lack of lighting, AFP noted.

“We’ve had enough,” said Laura Mujica, a 20-year-old student. “They said this problem would be solved on Monday,” she said, pointing to an electric pole that had been down since Tuesday.

In a context of recurring food shortages, Cubans are used to storing meat and perishable foodstuffs in their freezers. A prolonged power outage is then a disaster.

“I came to a friend’s house to put food in her freezer,” says a relieved Adrian Noriega, a 30-year-old lawyer who lives in the La Vibora district.

After the devastating passage of Ian, Mexico, Venezuela and Bolivia expressed their solidarity with Cuba. The United States Embassy in Havana recalled that “United States law authorizes American agencies and entities to provide disaster relief in Cuba”.

In the suburbs of the capital, employees of hospitals or other buildings with an electric generator charge up to 200 Cuban pesos (C$11.55) for the possibility of recharging their telephones.

Public transport in the capital was to resume on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Transport, while “the country’s airports are operational again” for international flights.

The chimneys of the Turkish generator boat, rented by the electricity company and anchored in Havana Bay, are smoking again, AFP noted.