Sandy Damaged over 150,000 Homes in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES — While the magnitude of the damage from Hurricane Sandy is still being compiled preliminary government reports show widespread devastation in Santiago de Cuba and Holguin.
In Santiago, where Sandy entered Cuba from the south, the local authorities reported on Saturday that 132,733 homes, apartments and other buildings were damaged, of those 15,322 were considered totally destroyed. Over 43,000 of the homes lost part or all of the roofs.
In Holguin, the province from where Sandy left Cuba in route to The Bahamas and the USA, an estimated 17,000 homes were damaged, 1,800 totally destroyed and 3,000 without roofs.
There were also many homes damaged in Guantanamo province.
Electric service is still out in many parts of the affected region and hundreds of electric workers from other parts of the country have joined in the effort to restore energy as quickly as possible.
Over a thousand four hundred schools and nearly four hundred health facilities were damaged by the storm’s 105 mph winds, reported government authorities.
Extreme weather phenomena such as hurricanes and earthquakes are hard and costly enough even for developed countries, as we are seeing in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy sweep over the Eastern US. It is heartbreaking to think nature could be so unkind to Cuba with its blockaded modest means, and previous damage from 2008.
I’ve been wondering whether Cuba has been considering the emergency or permanent use of shipping containers as building materials? I can see the lack of finance capital as the major or perhaps the only hindrance to Cuba’s construction industry and re-construction efforts. But certainly not a deficiency in know-how. Anyone who has seen examples of Cuban construction abroad such as the ultra-modern and truly beautiful Polytecnico Maximo Gomez in Bani, Dominican Republic (a gift of Cuba – building and equipment included), similar school building-gift to Jamaica in the 70’s or the Grenada airport landing field that was bloodily halted by Reagan’s invasion in 83 will be impressed with Cuba’s technological excellence in this area as much as in the better known fields of medicine and biotechnology.
Hopefully, these positives will come to play in the search for solutions to mitigate the effects of natural disasters in Cuba.
mother nature, she’s very powerful. my condolences.