Irma, a fateful blow to Havana

Cuba sloweded the coup to Florida but nothing sloweded the coup to Cuba. Irma hit the north coast of the island, tore up houses and hotels, caused big floods and killed at least 10 people. While the south of the United States recovers with relative speed normality after the passage of the cyclone, Havana woke up this Wednesday with widespread shortages of electricity and water.
The capital remained in dramatic conditions and in the dark even though Raúl Castro’s government has been trying to re-establish the systems for days, according to the digital diary 14ymedio. But reconstruction work faces a long way ahead. In the city, Irma damaged more than 4,000 houses and collapsed more than 1,000. The sea surpassed the Malecon, the old promenade of Havana, and entered through the streets of the city up to 300 meters inland. In the neighborhoods of Centro Habana, Old Havana and Miramar, the historic floods and winds of more than 250 kilometres per hour were carried televisions, refrigerators and mattresses; Enormous economic losses for a country already mired in a serious economic situation marked by shortages and precariousness.
On Tuesday they managed to take off the first flights from Jose Martí International Airport, but thousands of tourists are still trapped waiting for the travel companies to rescue them. The services sector, one of the engines of the fragile Cuban economy, will suffer millions of losses. Thousands of agricultural plantations, such as sugarcane, were also devastated, eliminating another important economic component for the country.
Since the passage of the hurricane, the worst in several decades, hospitals, schools and services such as garbage collection remain dormant. Without just being able to cook, drink running water or shower, citizens fight the high temperatures as they can. Some in Havana sleep on their terraces and flock to the lobbies of the few hotels with electricity to charge their phones.
Venezuela, Cuba’s largest ally, has shipped a plane with 7.3 tons of water, food and mattresses.