Destruction left by hurricane Irma in Cuba adds to unease about the effects of climate change.
| Autor | Vazquez, Daniel |
Hurricane Irma affected most of the Cuban archipelago, leaving behind a dozen deaths, floods, destruction, and worsening the local population's feelings of helplessness in the face of climate change. Cuba has been affected by severe droughts, rising sea levels, and floods in recent years.
Climate disruption is no longer an abstract topic of conversation for Cubans; it is a living nightmare, creating fears of losing homes, belongings, and crops.
Cubans have resigned themselves to the fact that summers are getting hotter and lasting longer-excessive heat is becoming an obsession, along with concerns about low water levels in the reservoirs and a drought that has starved cattle and ruined crops (NotiCen, July 23, 2015). Coastlines and beaches are eroding due to the rising sea level, and residents of low areas along the coast in Havana are dealing with waves at high tide that abruptly flood ground floors and garages.
For decades, Cuba's government implemented a hurricane warning system and massive evacuations that serve to avoid fatalities. However, the upsurge in increasingly violent hurricanes poses new challenges for the government. Storms have sparked outbreaks of protest such as those that arose in areas of Havana due to the lack of electric power and potable water after Irma.
A panorama of desolation
The wreckage left by Irma covered 13 of Cuba's 15 provinces. The eye of the hurricane made landfall in Cuba as a Category 5 and traveled along the northern coast, where thermoelectric plants, tourist facilities, hotels, and airports are located. The winds were measured at more than 200 km per hour, and more than 1.7 million people had to be evacuated. The flora and fauna of protected areas such as the Jardines del Rey archipelago were severely damaged.
Forty percent of the sugar mills were damaged, and 430,000 hectares of sugarcane, one of the country's main crops, were flattened. Oil infrastructure was "severely hit," with 90 wells damaged, as reported by the Empresa de Perforacion y Extraccion de Petroleo, a Cuban drilling and oil extraction enterprise. The organization noted, nonetheless, that those damages would not change this year's annual production. Cuba produces about 4 million tons of oil (just under 25 million barrels) annually and 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas (NotiCen, Nov. 3, 2016).
According to preliminary official reports, 4,288 homes were damaged in Havana, with 157 buildings completely collapsed and 986 partially...
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