Rising waters threaten Cuba; Hurricane Ike now a Cat 2
- From: PL <pl.nospam@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:57:20 +0200
HURRICANE IKE
Rising waters threaten Cuba; Hurricane Ike now a Cat 2
Posted on Wed, Sep. 10, 2008
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Landslides and rising waters in southeastern provincial reservoirs kept more than half a million people evacuated in Cuba Wednesday, nearly three days after Category 3 Hurricane Ike slammed into the island, leaving what officials say could be up to $4 billion in damage.
As of 2 p.m. Wednesday, Ike had restrengthened over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to a Category 2 storm with winds of 100 mph. It was located about 255 miles west of Key West. A tropical storm warning remained in effect for the Cuban provinces of Matanzas and Havana, Pinar del Río and the Isle of Youth.
There was also a tropical storm warning from west of Key West to the Dry Tortugas, the National Hurricane Center said.
Current models show Ike arriving in Texas early Saturday as a Category 3 storm.
In the Cuban province of Granma, more than 340,000 people who live in low-lying areas were in shelters or relatives' homes Wednesday, because dams are filling beyond capacity. Thirty people had to be rescued by helicopter in Guisa when they were trapped by a landslide, the Cuban newspaper Granma said.
In Sancti Spiritus, the country's largest reservoir filled with 300 million cubic yards of water, one of the ''most impressive'' amounts of water in its 35-year history, the Cuban newspaper Granma reported Wednesday.
Unprecedented flooding in Camagüey continued.
Cuban authorities said more than 2.6 million people had to flee their homes since Sunday, when Ike slammed into eastern Cuba. It later weakened, dipped south to sea and made a second landfall Tuesday as a Category 1 storm over the western Pinar del Río province.
The rains are likely to cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides in western Cuba, forecasters said, predicting rain of up to 12 inches over western Cuba.
The damage Ike created in Cuba has been extensive.
Cuban authorities said in Nuevitas, in Camagüey, at least 15 percent of the hotels were damaged. Some 2,500 homes were also affected, and 300 of them destroyed.
''Everyone is volunteering how they can -- some are cutting up the wood, some are taking out the trash, everyone is pitching in,'' Zuliemy Garcia said by phone from Nuevitas, relaying how everyone was sharing food. ``When we looked outside and saw what happened to our city, a lot of people were crying. Did I cry? Of course not, I'm strong. It was just painful to see how much it destroyed.''
The United Nations on Wednesday estimated the damage at up to $4 billion, saying 140,000 structures had been damaged.
The heavy rains soaked the buildings of Havana's picturesque older areas, causing some of the more dilapidated to collapse, the Associated Press reported. Four aging houses on a single block were reduced to rubble when their walls came tumbling down with a loud boom, and work crews labored with heavy machinery in the strong winds to clear the rubble from the street.
Collapsed buildings were reported throughout the capital city, and more were probable in coming days as the structures dry out and weaken. All of the buildings appeared to have been evacuated, and no injuries were reported Tuesday.
''Just the fear of hearing the wind as strong as it was -- I can't even begin to put into words,'' Gisela Arvelo, 43, said by phone from Santiago de Cuba. ``It was the sound of a wild animal let loose.''
However, on Monday four deaths were blamed on Ike, including the deaths of two men who were electrocuted while taking down an antenna and two others whose houses caved in on them.
''We don't have new damage,'' Olga Lidia Tapia, head of the civil defense council in Pinar del Río said on the Cuban nightly news. ``What we have is damage that changed in category. If the house was a house without a roof, now it's partial collapse or total collapse.''
In Villa Clara, 70 percent of the crops were destroyed, including 80 percent of the banana trees, news anchor Randy Alonso said Tuesday.
In Camagüey, the Cuban state newspaper Adelante said the damage was ``principally to the electrical and telephone system, industrial and tourist facilities, schools, homes, warehouses of different uses and forestry.''
The city was completely without power after the province's north and south coasts were flooded by sea surge and three rivers overflowed inland. A second evacuation operation was underway in Camagüey Tuesday, where up to 4,000 people were being moved due to rising waters.
''After bidding farewell to this unwelcome visitor, another equally damaging one arrived: the flooding due to the overflowing rivers,'' the newspaper said.
Cubaencuentro website reported heavy damage to the town of Chaparra in Las Tunas, saying 80 percent of the homes were damaged. In Ciego de Avila, the state government news agency said the largest fruit company in the country, La Cuba, was severely damaged.
Television footage showed widespread destruction to nearly all the buildings and gas stations.
''The sea wall is completely destroyed,'' said Dennys Rodríguez Guilarte, 44, who runs a guest house in Baracoa, Guantánamo. ``The winds pushed the sea onto the people who live there. Now there's a hurricane of people trying to recover everything from the debris.''
Mudslides and flooding blocked La Farola, the main road between Baracoa and Guantánamo. The armed forces arrived Tuesday morning with some equipment and rebuilding materials like cement, Rodríguez said. An Irish woman and Dutch man were staying at his house during the storm, and they joined the recovery efforts, he added.
Verónica Bravo, who answered the phone at the guest house, said the strength of the storm was frightening.
''I feel a little scared by what has happened,'' she said. ``It was too ugly, too horrible.''
From her Baracoa house, Nélida Sevila could see the towering waves pounding on the sea wall, where the town was ``totally destroyed.''
''Everything, everything, everything,'' said Sevila, who sent her guests to a hotel before the storm hit. ``I'm still a little nervous. This is a disaster.
``The sea, the sea is a betrayer.''
In Granma province, some 150,000 banana plants fell in Laguna Blanca, and Guama, Segundo and Tercer Frentes are unreachable by land because of flooding on the main roads, the state media reported.
Television showed helicopters attempting to rescue people trapped by landslides there.
At least nine reservoirs in the southeast filled, creating what the state press called ''a tense panorama'' in Yerba de Guinea, where the reservoir rose 11 inches in just four hours. In Guantánamo, two reservoirs were being vented.
Compared to other portions of Cuba, the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay on the southeastern tip of the island was spared the brunt of Ike.
Navy station officers reported a few fallen branches, toppled trees and ripped up awnings but nothing that hampered operations. The airfield was reopened and ferry restored Tuesday after a two-day closure, just in time for a planeload of U.S. lawyers and Canadian media to arrive from Washington D.C. for hearings ahead of the Oct. 8 war crimes trial of Toronto-born detainee Omar Khadr.
Cuban television showed no footage of President Raúl Castro but newspapers included reports of him calling the provincial leaders to offer support and ``stay informed.''
''We can't be too confident and have to be vigilant,'' Prensa Latina quoted him telling Matanza civil defense officials.
Miami Herald staff writers Laura Figueroa, Patricia Mazzei, Evan S. Benn, Carol Rosenberg and translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.
http://www.miamiherald.com/1264/story/680214.html
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