Can Cuba continue to dodge
hurricane bullet?
By Mary Murray, Producer.
NBC
News, June 1, 2006
HAVANA - First, Hurricane Dennis blew the
roof off Magdelena Guzman's top-floor Havana
apartment.
Then Hurricane Wilma crumbled the outside
wall.
Both times, she worried more about looters
than the storms and ignored Civil Defense
orders to evacuate.
Along with her sister and teenage daughter,
she took refuge on a darkened stairwell.
They survived without a scratch but storm
waters destroyed most of their furniture,
mattresses, television set and kitchen appliances.
Recovery hasn't been easy, says Guzman,
but with help from her job and friends "life
is getting back on track." Her aging
housing, though, is another story.
With the new hurricane season here, Guzman
is scrambling to get her house in order
- lacking not just money, but construction
supplies. "It's all been at great personal
sacrifice because we live from paycheck
to paycheck," said Guzman, a 50-year-old
bookkeeper. "I'm just praying we won't
be hit this year."
Unlikely, says Cuba's chief hurricane tracker
Dr. Jose Rubiera who, like his regional
colleagues, expects another rough season
due to warmer-than-usual water temperatures
in the Atlantic-Caribbean basin.
"We're expecting 15 tropical storms
and at least nine will become hurricanes,
about a third more than average," said
Rubiera, head of the National Forecasting
Center.
His calculations differ slightly from U.S.
predictions but he advises "not to
get hung up on numbers. Just be prepared
to face another active season."
'Hurricane savvy' culture
Thinking ahead to the 2006 season, Rubiera's
Institute bought some new technology.
This season eight automated radars will
be sending real-time digital imagery back
to the Havana weather headquarters and to
their website:www.met.inf.cu
Rubiera thinks that upgrade should also
help American meteorologists better track
hurricane paths since a lot of storms that
pass over Cuba eventually make landfall
in the United States.
Over the last 20 years, the island has
weathered 14 fierce storms but with surprisingly
low fatalities - fewer than 40 in all. Rubiera
credits two phenomena with the minimal loss
of life: a "hurricane savvy" culture
and effective evacuation.
A solid 72 hours before a major storm,
Civil Defense starts issuing bulletins,
advisories and orders. As schools and offices
close, evacuation centers start stockpiling
supplies. Depending on the storm's size,
anticipated sea surge and landfall, Civil
Defense may begin actual evacuations as
much as three days in advance.
Certainly 48 hours before landfall, when
the alert stage begins, people are packing
up and being moved to safer ground. Since
few Cubans own cars, the government provides
transportation.
Almost nothing is left to chance and never
to the last moment, says Rubiera. "It's
a system we've refined and that works well."
People know the drill
Changes in policy over the years have made
evacuation more tolerable. During last year's
evacuations, residents of the hard-hit province
of western Pinar del Rio brought household
pets to government shelters while Civil
Defense workers evacuated their livestock
to higher ground.
In some towns prone to severe flooding,
the government hired private truckers to
cart furniture and appliances to public
warehouses for safe-keeping.
The system also works because people know
the drill.
And, in the event they forget, the military
runs nation-wide exercises every spring
that includes first aid training and mock
evacuations for Cuban Red Cross workers,
hospital staff and other emergency personnel.
After Civil Defense moved some two million
people out of the anticipated path of Hurricane
Ivan in 2004, the U.N. office that deals
with disaster reduction praised the island
as a model for hurricane-evacuation planning.
Effective evacuation or heavy hand?
Few people question the order to evacuate.
Government critics say that's because people
are afraid to buck the authoritarian system.
"When the soldiers knock, people have
no choice but to obey," said Hector
Nuñez, a Havana taxi driver whose
basement apartment was robbed when he evacuated
three seasons ago. "They'll never make
me leave my home again."
But many islanders are like Ivis Gonzalez
- fearing Mother Nature more than the authorities.
The day after Hurricane Wilma, she waded
back home through storm surge only to watch
her wooden house collapse under a violent
post-storm wave.
"I could have been killed," Gonzalez
admits. Instead, she was rescued for a second
time by Cuban soldiers sent to clear out
the fishing village of Playa Baracoa. Now
at the top of a government waiting list
for new housing, Gonzalez is asking to be
relocated "someplace far from the sea."
The government plans to build and sell
at reduced prices over 100,000 apartments
this year, a good number of them earmarked
for hurricane victims. Crews are rushing
to finish as many as possible before the
season's first storm.
According to Cuban government figures,
last season's hurricanes caused over $2
billion in damage - a hefty sum, but not
as bad as it could be if Havana was ever
hit.
Havana hardly safe
In fact, some believe the island, sitting
smack in the middle of the hurricane corridor,
has been enormously fortunate.
So far, the city of Havana, an ancient
and overcrowded place which two million
people call home, has dodged the bullet.
Every hurricane season Havana residents
worry their luck will run out.
Mario Coyula, Havana's best known architect,
fears that a major hurricane - anything
greater than a Category 3 - would spell
catastrophe for the Cuban capital.
Few buildings would escape structural damage,
says Coyula. "The elements, bad construction
techniques and years of neglect have all
taken a toll."
The corrosive sea air, in particular, spells
trouble for the city - especially in homes
sitting along its 18 miles of coastline.
Coyula has found salt oxidization running
an inch deep in the outer walls of the homes
lining the Bay of Havana.
Roofing is another wide-spread problem.
Iron beams supporting many of the city's
roofs have also rusted from the inside out,
corroding the cement.
For decades the Cuban government ignored
Havana's housing needs while gearing construction
to rural villages, says Coyula. "The
city's housing stock is in grave shape,"
especially the 80 percent of all inner-city
units dating back almost a century.
Those neighborhoods are also the most crowded
and with the highest proportion of tenements.
In a 2003 U.N.-commissioned study, Coyula
found some 34,000 inhabitants per square
mile in the colonial section of town. At
the same time that neighborhood averages
about two partial building collapses every
three days.
Another study reports that every year an
additional 1,400 buildings on the verge
of collapse are abandoned.
The government claims some 30 percent of
Havana's housing is in poor shape, not expected
to survive the assault of a major storm.
By Coyula's estimates, over half a million
people would be left homeless.
Even a Category Three storm would be catastrophic
for the city, predicts Coyula. "Thousands
of tenement homes would crumble under the
rainfall
all the makeshift construction
would blow away."
Havana high rises are another concern.
Many of the city's taller buildings were
constructed after 1944, the last time a
major hurricane swept through Havana. "They
have never been tested", warned Coyula.
He believes they could be susceptible to
structural damage.
Real fears
The city of Havana, dating back 500 years,
has an aging infrastructure that would cost
billions to modernize. Particularly vulnerable
is the water supply, notes Coyula, "which
could be contaminated by a major storm."
Under this doomsday scenario, it would
take years before the city would begin to
recover. Knowing this, the average Cuban
worries not just about surviving a storm,
but being left homeless for decades to come.
Mary Murray is an NBC News producer
based in Havana.
© 2006
MSNBC.com
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