Havana escapes brunt of storm; 8 million affected

By Vanessa Bauzá
Havana Bureau

CIENFUEGOS, Cuba · About 8 million Cubans were struggling to recover after Hurricane Dennis cut a furious path across the island, leveling houses and knocking out electricity, government officials said Saturday.

The massive storm reduced some houses to piles of rubble, flooded acres of crops, and devastated villages from the far eastern tip of the island to the central heartland, affecting about three-quarters of the nation's 11 million residents.

In Havana, 10-foot waves crashed over the seawall and chunks of concrete fell from the city's colonial buildings. At least 5,000 homes were damaged in Havana's surrounding province, officials estimated. However, the capital, home to 2 million residents, escaped the brunt of the storm's impact.

The southern provinces of Cienfuegos and Sancti Spiritus were among the hardest hit. Vice Minister of Transportation Eduardo Casas estimated more than $1.7 million in losses of both property and goods in the port of Cienfuegos on the south central coast.

Torrential rains continued until late Saturday in much of central Cuba. Electric poles were toppled; walls and fences were knocked to the ground as if by a wrecking ball; trees were uprooted and shredded; and store windows were smashed.

Cuba's death toll from the hurricane remained at 10, including two sisters in their 50s who were crushed by a collapsed wall in an eastern province while trying to find shelter under a bed, and an 18-day-old baby who suffocated while being held too snugly by a woman who was being evacuated from Granma as the storm approached. Cuban President Fidel Castro reported details of the deaths in a speech Friday.

The poorest residents in the shantytowns along the port of Cienfuegos, 157 miles east of Havana, bore much of the brunt of Dennis' fury. Many had not recovered from the pounding of Hurricane Michelle, a powerful Category 4 storm that traced a similar route across central Cuba in 2001, and they seemed overwhelmed by nature's newest challenge.

"What little we saved, what little we had, is wasted or gone," Pedro Betancourt, a 47-year-old veterinarian, said as he shoveled debris from his collapsed roof and wall. "My house is more than 80 years old and the force of the hurricane was violent. But everyone is facing the same tragedy and that will slow down the arrival of supplies to help us rebuild."

Millions of residents from the central province of Villa Clara to Havana were without electricity on Saturday.

"We could spend the next 15 days without electricity. All the electrical poles are on the ground. We have no phone service. We are out of communication," said Agueda Jimenez, 38, a government worker.

Jimenez's husband, Roberto Macias, stacked their soaked mattresses, clothes and warped wooden furniture, trying to salvage what they could from their flooded home.

"The force of the wind stripped the paint off our furniture," said Macias, a retired public heath administrator who lives in a 100-year-old wooden house by the bay in Cienfuegos. Rainwater streamed down one of the house's interior walls like a waterfall.

"For us this is very sad. [Hurricane] Michelle ripped up the roads and trees, but it was a dry hurricane," Macias said. "Dennis is more dangerous because it's wet. At any moment these old homes could collapse. They give no warning."

The wide disparity between Cubans' average $15 monthly salaries and the cost of living forces many people to be completely reliant on government aid to recover from natural disasters. However, some said that could take months or even years.

"It will take years of effort to recover, especially for the oldest homes," said Jose Martinez, 43. "A sack of cement costs $6.60. That means a month's work for two sacks of cement. No one has money for that. If the government facilitates the materials, it's a different story. But not everyone will get the materials."

Truck driver Manuel Gil, 52, patched up his home with scraps of corrugated metal and particle board, barely keeping a roof over his head from one hurricane season to the next.

"The materials are too expensive," Gil said. "We can't afford them."

Communist Party official Modesto Morales lost his entire roof. He said local government officials began visiting affected homes and register damage on Saturday.

"So many people were affected, it requires a huge expense to confront this," Morales, 40, said. "I've spent the past four years building my house. Whenever you get ahead a little, a hurricane comes and puts you back where you were."

Information from The Associated Press was used to supplement this report. Vanessa Bauza can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com.

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