Hurricane Ike devastates Cuba

Ike is now a Category 2 hurricane. It has deflected slightly to the south, so it looks as if it is going to pass over the Isle of Youth, which was devastated a week ago by hurricane Hugo Gustav.

The eye is travelling at a slow 22 km/hr., so it will be lingering over Cuba for at least another full day.

It was Gustav, of course. I was trying to think of a name beginning with H, the letter before I, but of course I forgot there was already a hurricane Hanna in there.

Everyone is acknowledging Cuba's excellent emergency preparedness, but Ike is raking almost all of Cuba so it's going to be devestating.

Venezuela will help just as New Orleans residents are also turning to Venezuela for help.

Four Cubans have died in Ike-related accidents.

UPDATE: the death toll has been revised upward to 7. The toll in the USA is 8.
quote:UNICEF's Vivianna Limpias said the four died from storm-related accidents. They are the first fatalities in Cuba during this year's hurricane season.

The four dead included two men who were electrocuted, a woman whose house collapsed and a man crushed by a tree that fell on his home.

Limpias said officials expect more drastic long-term effects, however.

"The consequences for the island have been really devastating in terms of houses and harvests, particularly during the world food crisis. This is something that's going to be a real problem in the next month," she told CTV Newsnet from Cuba.

"Some official sources in Cuba estimate the damage is going to amount to between three and four billion dollars."

She said UNICEF is evaluating the state of infrastructure on the island, setting up temporary shelter for those who require it and providing water and sanitation equipment to victims. - CTV

[ 14 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

Wednesday, Sept. 10: quote:The eye of Ike has left Cuba, but the body is still kicking strong. Imagine: as of about 4pm, it's slowly growing in size and intensity. Sustained winds of 150 kph. Still category 1 but category 2 starts at 154 kph sustained winds. Its bands of tropical storm winds and rains extend 335 km (radius) covering all of Pinar del Rio with rains reaching to the western part of Camaguey province in central Cuba. And we're being told to brace for another 12-24 hours of rains. In Habana, we're still getting occasional gusts up to over 80 kph. All western coastal areas have been evacuated due to inundations. Last night, for instance, ocean waters penetrated two km inland in the Batabano area, on the central southern coast of Provincia Habana.

Lots of "firsts", but for which no one will get a ribbon:

As of 4:30 yesterday afternoon, over 2.5 million people - or almost 21 percent of the country' s population of some 12 million - have been evacuated. And the number is slowly growing, as rivers that have never flooded before leave their banks, fattened by torrential rains, and dams that are fill and spilling over contribute even more to the flooding. 2.5 million! In the 17 years I've been in Cuba, including through many hurricanes, I don't remember that many people ever being evacuated before. That's an immense undertaking involving organization, coordination and cooperation. Significantly, over two million of these people were able to get shelter in the homes of family and friends, yet another indication of the incredible solidarity that is an everyday functioning part of Cuban society.

The damage to food crops as well as export crops is extensive. In Villa Clara, some 70% of plantains - all kinds - have been knocked down, with maize, papaya and yuca also seriously affected. In Holguin, plantain, yuca, vegetables and beans have been affected. In Santiago de Cuba, damages to plantain, yuca, maize, plus sugar cane has been burned by the winds. Lots of coffee beans have fallen off trees and, weather permitting, they'll try to save what they can. In Ciego de Avila, a strong producer of plantains for the entire country, the greatest damage has occurred in the agricultural sector, in particular - but not only - to the plantain crops. In Cienfuegos, plantain and sweet potato are affected, as well as vegetables and citrus such as grapefruit and orange. The one crop that hasn't been affected is malanga - a tuber kind of like potato. And they're trying to recuperate coffee beans that have fallen on the ground in the Escambray Mountains. The same in Baracoa and Maisi, both in Guantanamo, which are key (actually, the main) coffee-producing areas in Cuba.

Housing has been seriously affected everywhere. For example, preliminary reports from Holguin indicate that over 150,000 houses have been affected, of which 37,000 have been totally destroyed. The province of Las Tunas says that nothing like Ike has ever hit the province during the last fifty years. In some municipalities, 80% of the housing stock has been affected. I can't even begin to estimate how many hundreds of thousands of houses have been either damaged or destroyed on a national scale! The final numbers are bound to be high.

And the rains! That's the most serious part of Ike right now, even more than the winds. In the Escambray, over 500 mm has fallen in some areas. Some communities are still incomunicado due to roads blocked with trees. But before Ike arrived, experienced personnel, including health specialists, had been sent to these mountain communities, along with additional food stocks, in anticipation of such problems, as Hurricane Fay, which affected Cienfuegos just before Gustav, had already affected electricity networks in the Escambray. The beautiful area of Las Terrazas, in Pinar del Rio - which many of you have no doubt visited, got over 400 mm of rain in the last 24 hours, as have many other areas in the province - and elsewhere in the country. Pinar is completely without electricity. Vinales and many other areas are completely incomunicado. To the impact of Gustav is being added the impact of Ike. Some people in Pinar del Rio were even asking if Ike is returning, as they're without communication or up-to-date access to information and the rains seem worse than before!

Everywhere in the country, dams are full and overflowing, causing inundations - still - in low zones, which are fully evacuated. In Las Tunas, before Ike passed, the province was experiencing a drought, with dams only 50% full. Now, all dams are spilling over. A first: the Bulgara Dam in Camaguey, built 22 years old, has NEVER been full, but now, after Ike, it's full and spilling for the first time since it was constructed. And this story is repeated everywhere.

Also, for the first time since it was built, the carretera central, Cuba's main central highway, has flooded. For those of you who know Cuba, the flooding covers a 3.5 km length at Aguada de Pasajeros, where the central highway - that is the main road link between west and east, crosses with the main highway from Cienfuegos in the south to Matanzas in northwest, is so full of water that all traffic has been stopped, and it's anticipated that it'll be closed for at least three or so days. This has never happened before and the images are impressive! Flooding has been caused by overflowing rivers in the area, that have never flooded like this before now.

One bit of very good news, though, to come out of Cienfuegos is that the new "more hurricane proof" houses that were built to replace coastal settlements that had been completely demolished by Hurricane Dennis (2005) were able to withstand Ike. This is very good news indeed!

Jose Rubiera, the head of Cuba's weather forecast department, was asked if Cuba has ever had a hurricane that has touched every part of the country as has Ike. He replied that Hurricane Dennis (2005) entered Granma and then blasted up the centre of Cuba, but that the eastern part of Cuba has never had a hurricane as strong as Ike. Flora (1963) also affected a great part of Cuba, especially the east, but it was more rain than wind - unlike Ike which has been both plus heavy coastal inundations.

Assistance is coming from everywhere, both inside and outside the country. Examples: Santiago de Cuba has sent brigades to help Baracoa and Holguin. Camaguey, which has brigades in Pinar del Rio who went there after Gustav, has told those brigades to stay put and continue to help reconstruction efforts in that sister province. Camaguey, which has gone at least 25 years without being hit by a hurricane of this magnitude and which says they don't have the same experience confronting them as does Pinar, has reached out a very substantial hand of solidarity to los pinarenos.

And from overseas. You already know about the assistance from Russia: food, huge tents, construction materials. And $500,000 from poor little Timor Leste. Mexico is offering aid in housing and electricity. Uruguay is making a call to the international community to help Cuba with foods, medicines and construction materials. Brazil is putting together an interministerial Assistance Group to help both Cuba and Haiti. After Gustav, solidarity and offers of help were already coming from China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Spain, Brazil Mexico, Guatemala, the Cayman Islands, Peru, Santa Lucia, etc.
Source

Is Canada sending aid?

[ 14 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

quote:All Cubans are taught how to deal with emergencies, starting in the primary grades and continuing through higher education as part of the curricula for all specialties. For example, architecture students spend 70 hours studying defense preparedness. Their curriculum includes: the harmonization of economic and social development programs with the needs for safety; fundamentals of civil defense in normal times and in emergencies; disaster management; risk mapping; vulnerability considerations in design; accessibility of buildings for evacuation; salvage and urgent repair; and designing dual-use buildings for emergency use (schools are hurricane refuges). All enterprises, including foreign and mixed companies, are required to have disaster plans.

Each year at the start of the hurricane season, a two-day hurricane drill is held, the first day for responders and the second for the whole country. Then, when a hurricane is approaching, plans are activated. All citizens know where they will move to if evacuation becomes necessary. Food and water are stored where they will be needed. Family doctors assure that people will have their prescriptions. All means of transport from helicopters to horse carts are mobilized. Communications, from fiber optics to ham radio to carrier pigeons, are readied. Trees near power lines are pruned. Foresters, veterinarians, entertainers, the Cuban Council of Churches, and the Cuban Red Cross are all prepared under a nationally coordinated Civil Defense leadership.

After the hurricane passes, reconstruction begins immediately, with no interruption of wages when a workplace has to shut down because of damage or lack of power. Then the experience is analyzed and solutions are sought to be able to cope better with future storms. For instance, if houses in eastern Cuba suffered more damage than in the west, then it is determined that they have to be built stronger. In the aftermath of hurricane Dennis, several children died from water-borne infections. The Cuban government made it a priority to find out why. It also investigates how settlements can be built in less vulnerable places.

The result of all this is that despite often-extensive economic damage, few lives are lost. Hurricane George (1998) killed 597 people elsewhere, and only four in Cuba. Michelle (2001) killed five, Ivan (2004) killed none in Cuba but thousands in the rest of the Caribbean, Charley killed four, Dennis at least 10.

The Cuban meteorologist Fernando Boytel told me years ago that a hurricane is a natural event with many potentials; it can even replenish water resources if people have built reservoirs. But lack of preparation makes it a disaster.

Cuba's success is based on the priority given to the quality of life for everyone, a holistic approach to problem-solving across disciplines, community-level participation, thorough coordination from the national to the local, and a culture of collectivity and safety. Cuba is now ready to share its experience with the world.Richard Levins, "Cuba's Example", Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Vol. 16 No. 4, December, 2005.

Oxfam Supporting Relief Efforts in Cuba

Ottawa, 2008-09-12

The biggest impact of the recent hurricanes in Cuba is on farms, housing and other infrastructure according to international agency, Oxfam. Hurricane Ike which hit the country on Sunday is the fourth tropical cyclone, after Fay, Gustav and Hannah, to hit Cuba in just three weeks. The impact of heavy rains, winds and waves has been felt across the island. Over 20 per cent of the population has had to be evacuated from their homes. Reports indicate that this is the worst disaster to hit Cuba since 1963.

Assessments of the damage have been hindered due to the ongoing difficult weather conditions and lack of electricity in the majority of the island. However, it is known that over 1.2 million people have been directly affected by the hurricanes; close to 30,000 homes have been destroyed.

Oxfam has begun to mobilize funds from the public and governments to support the distribution of non-food relief items to the most vulnerable. Oxfam partners are prioritizing the replacement of agricultural tools and the rebuilding of greenhouses and vegetable gardens so that food production can resume as soon as possible.

“Oxfam is urgently calling on the public to generously donate towards the rehabilitation efforts in Cuba,” said Beat Schmid, coordinator for Oxfam’s work in Cuba. “As the rains continue, we know people will need help as they begin re-establishing their lives.”

Click here to make a donation to Oxfam Canada by credit card. Be sure to select “Hurricane Relief 2008” in the Fund box.

Neither carbon trading nor carbon taxes will work to ameliorate effects of global warming if there is no political will to make it work. Canada's two old line parties have been committed to a policy of planned and enforced impotence when it comes to raising corporate taxes or even collecting deferred and unpaid corporate income taxes. Liberals are clueless when it comes to corporate income taxes. $40 dollars a ton is too low according to Ralph Nader, himself an advocate of the carbon tax. McCallum is the ultimate Elmer Fudd of economics and anything of importance in general. He was a terrible defence minister who mixed up WWI events with WW II on live TV. That guy really didn't impress me quite a lot. Jim Stanford made him look like a total fool on Canadian townhall TV when discussing the Liberals' multi-billion dollar corporate tax cut commitment post 9-11. The Liberals need new blood and are not ready to take power in Ottawa, and not for a long time.

The Liberals handed Canada's natural gas industry to corporate America in the 1950's, and then sold Canada's environment to Exxon-Imperial and big fossil fool friends during their most recent dynastic rule. The Liberals have proven time and again that they cannot be trusted on so many issues surrounding the economy, the environment, and social democracy.

[ 14 September 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:Cuba is organised as a mutual aid society in which every citizen has his responsibilities, his duties and his place. When hurricanes threaten Cuba, people move out of the way guided by the neighourhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution – CDR. They move the old and the young, the sick and the healthy and their cats, dogs, parrots, their goats, donkeys and cows, to safe places.

Here is a truly incredible fact. Last week the Cubans moved 2,615,000 people – a number nearly equivalent to the entire population of Jamaica, to safety. Four people died in the storm, the first fatalities for years.It is a remarkable statistic. Three years ago when Texas tried to evacuate a million or so ahead of hurricane Rita more than a hundred people died in the evacuation.

The hurricanes hitting Cuba this year have been peculiarly destructive, Gustav leaving behind wreckage which reminded Fidel Castro of the wreckage of Hiroshima.

Cuba needs food, not because of poverty – as in Haiti, but because its crops have been devastated and food stores destroyed. When the Cubans asked the Americans to allow them to buy supplies from the US, Condoleezza Rice said no!

The Cubans were not asking for charity.

Some of us have long suspected that for some Americans, ideology was more important than humanity.

That celebrated rhetorical question in the Bible has now been answered by Secretary Rice:

If your brother asks for bread, will you give him a stone?

The essence of being human is that other humans recognise your humanity, I, and probably many others, are unable to recognise Ms Rice as human.

It is savagely ironic,or, perhaps, barbarically ironic that it is the Cubans who should be treated in this way. When people are in trouble anywhere in the world the Cubans send help no matter what the state of relations is with their governments, to Honduras, Guatemala and Pakistan among others. When Katrina hit the US the Cubans organised a 1,500 strong medical brigade which would have saved many lives, had their help been accepted.Source

[ 14 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

quote:Bypassing its trade embargo on communist Cuba, the United States on Tuesday announced approving 250 million dollars in "farm sales" to Havana after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike devastated Cuba's crops.

The licenses for agricultural sales, which include food and construction materials, were approved after Ike lashed Cuba a week ago and "wood, a material essential to rebuilding, is included," read a State Department communique delivered to reporters at the US Interests Section in Havana....

After being hit hard by two hurricanes in less than two weeks, desperate Cuba last week urged Washington to ease its trade embargo to allow US firms to open private lines of credit for food imports to the cash-strapped island of more than 11 million people.

The bilateral breakthrough "is more or less what they (the Cubans) are asking for, not credit because our law does not permit it. That will have to be through third parties. The license includes food and wood," a US diplomat in Havana told AFP privately.

A Spanish aircraft meanwhile was due in Cuba on Tuesday with 17 tonnes of aid from the World Food Program and another four tonnes from Spain to help those affected by the hurricanes. Other countries, including Brazil, Russia and Ecuador, have also sent humanitarian assistance.

Spain also has promised 300,000 euros for rebuilding social infrastructure, 200,000 euros for the Red Cross and another 18,000 via the Pan American Health Organization for the repair of medical centers, according to an official statement.- AFP

- excerpt from the speech of José Ramón Machado Ventura, First Vice-President of Cuba's Council of State and Ministers, to the general debate of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, September 24, 2008.

Powerful Hurricane Paloma strikes storm-weary Cuba

quote:CAMAGUEY, Cuba (AP) — Powerful Hurricane Paloma slammed into southern Cuba on Saturday as authorities scrambled to move hundreds of thousands of people to safer ground and protect crops on an island still reeling from two other storms.

Paloma made landfall near Santa Cruz del Sur as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm, but quickly weakened into a still-ferocious Category 3 with winds of 120 mph (195 kph) winds and torrential rains, the National Hurricane Center said