Surviving Hurricane Irma
I’ve often been in Cuba between June and November. This is the Caribbean’s hurricane season, when the warm sea and high pressure combine, like tomatoes and bartoli beans, to make the perfect recipe for wind. There had been hurricanes passing by or hitting other areas of Cuba when I’d been there before, but never where I was. The closest I’d been to one was arriving just after Hurricane Gustav tore up Pinar del Rio in late August of 2008. It just wasn’t fair. Then, in 2017, Irma hit.
I was staying with Lafonda at her family house near Miramar at the time, and, for days, Radio Reloj had warned of the impending storm. The whole island was on alert. Irma teased the Caribbean for a few days as it fluctuated between Category 3 and 4, but as it finally made landfall along Cuba’s north-east coast it roared into a Category 5 storm.
There were a few issues that needed attending at Lafonda’s ancestral home to make it “storm-ready”. Long neglected, the house was not in its best state. Two years ago a crack developed along the length of the living room ceiling and leaked water under the slightest of downpours. There were similar leaks in the back bedroom where Lafonda’s sister and her two daughters slept. Some local builders were hired and, as far as my builder’s eye could tell, all they did was paste a layer of cement over the ceiling. Also an issue were the windows. The shutters and frames were originals but had seen three generations of Lafonda’s family watch the paint gradually peel before the exposed began to rot. There wasn’t money to fix them.
We also needed supplies. Although Irma wasn’t predicted to do much damage to Havana, it was sure to leave its mark in some way or other. We needed food and water just in case the worst happened.
viernes, 8 de septiembre 2017
Woke up this morning and the wind was already picking up. This sounds ominous. Lafonda and I took a walk to the “supermarket” Centro Comercial on 3ra y 70 to buy up some water and food. As expected people were panic buying. I looked at all the tourists with utter disdain as they bought up all the basic supplies, leaving practically nothing for the locals. Some locals had the gaul to give me a dirty look when I bought up the last 50 litres of water. “Oye,” I would tell them in effortless Spanish, “yo soy Cuba.” They seemed to understand after that. I also bought a bottle of Havana Club 7 Años to share around with the family. There wasn’t any bread, however, and it meant we needed to look elsewhere.
The buildings along the coastline were warned to evacuate. The five hotels lining the nearby coast - Copacabana, Panorama, Tríton Neptuno, Melía Habana and Comodoro - were warned of possible storm surges which, if right, would see their reception areas at least inundated. As such, coaches were lining up to take disgruntled tourists elsewhere.
After dropping off the water we walked along la septima. It was the afternoon by now and the wind was growing in strength. Tree branches began whipping violently around and debris rolled down the streets. The clouds were an angry grey. I was totally nonchalant about the whole affair but Lafonda was urging me to hurry up.
We stopped at several bakeries along the way but they were either out of bread or shut. Finally we happened upon the bakery inside Dos Gardenias which still had three bread rolls for sale. Seeing a mother struggling to control her three children on route to the same bakery I quickly hurried my step and got in front of her. Lucky us. They only had three bread rolls left and we managed to buy the lot. The harassed mother look somewhat upset but I helpfully told her not to bother either with the bakeries nearby as we’d already tried there. It felt good knowing I’d saved her some time.
Afterwards we carried our bounty up to Avenida 31 and there we stumbled across another bakery. Lafonda had the idea of buying a cake to take back and share and, luckily, they had one left. It was a sad looking cake which struggled to maintain its shape in the warmth of the shop window. Incidentally, cakes, desserts and cheese - along with all baked goods and sweets - are things Cuba, and Latin America in general, have failed to master. Except perhaps the flan. Anyway, no sooner had we snapped up the cake when a father entered in search of a birthday cake for his daughter. Again, I told him all the bakeries we’re out of stock.
LAST MINUTE REPAIRS: As the wind picked up on the day before Irma hit, Lafonda’s family did some urgent repairs on the house to make it ‘hurricane ready’. Essentially, this involved ensuring the windows were shut. In this photo the whole family gather in Lafonda’s sister’ bedroom to watch tío Federico fasten the rotten window shutter with a rusty nail and bits of tape. Fortunately, the glass in the window and long since been sold off to so there was no danger of broken glass. The the dark patch on the ceiling where a giant crack had been shoddily patched up in recent months.
By the time we arrived back it was dark. Palm trees doubled over under the force of the strengthening wind and, in a couple of cases, buckled completely. The corrugated iron roof which covered next door’s balcony flapped ominously against the flimsy metal frame holding it up. Inside, Federico - one of three uncles living in the house - tried to secure one of the window shutters by driving a couple of rusty nails - most likely prized from a fixing elsewhere in the house - through the rotten wood. The whole household gathered to watch
There wasn’t much else we could do. We gathered in the front porch, me, Lafonda and her family, and shared around the bottle of Siete Años. Whatever the damage, they’d be able to console themselves with the thought of having supped on a higher grade of rum than their normal petrol station-bought brand. Around 7pm the power went off and the house and street was in total darkness.
We stayed in the balcony until approximately 11pm when we judged it too dangerous to remain there.
Sábado, 9 de septiembre 2017
A sleepless night. The wind howled around the roof, branches fell, and, around 3am, next door’s corrugated roof finally peeled itself clean and flipped, luckily, in some other direction. Lafonda’s mum, as she usually did, knocked on our bedroom door at around 6am carrying two cafecitos. Fittingly, our stash of Cubita and Serrano coffee had run out a few days before and we’d forgotten to buy more. The coffee she brought, then, was classic state-rationed Coffee, the ingredients and quality of a more dubious nature [2]. The repercussions of Irma were already being felt.
THE CLEAN UP: Tío Andrés drags a handful of fallen avocado tree branches out to the street. Having been up since 5am, and with a dodgy knee, his work rate is truly impressive. He would have loved some eggs for breakfast too but I had to insist on having them as, despite being treated like a local everywhere I go, my stomach has yet to cope with going longer than eight hours without a meal. It was only fair. Being Cuban, his stomach was adapted to not receiving food for up to 72 hours.
The house and neighbourhood had taken a battering. Lafonda’s uncles and cousins had already got up to begin the cleanup in the back garden. After watching them for a good 45-minutes through the open bedroom window, Lafonda suggested I should help out. Of course, I was already planning to do that. It’s just I was waiting for Lafonda’s mum to bring me my traditional huevos revueltos first, as it wouldn’t be fair to expect me to work on an empty stomach [3]. By the time I joined the uncles in the garden I’d hoped they’d have cleaned up the majority, but now I was out there I could see the damage. In the garden stood two huge trees: one mango and one avocado. The garden looked like an avocado massacre, Irma having shaken dozens and dozens of them to the ground, many of them splitting on impact under their own weight. One giant limb of the avocado tree broke off the main trunk during the night and fell onto the concrete stairs that ran up the outside of the house. Another metre and it may have fallen through the roof.
Us menfolk gathered the fallen branches and debris and cut them down into smaller pieces. Meanwhile, Lafonda and her mum salvaged the avocados and lay them temporarily in the washing basin.
SMASHED AVOCADO: Just some of the avocados that Irma shook from the tree in the back garden. There were many more this but, sadly, they were unrecoverable, having splintered on impact with the dirt.
When the clean-up was done at last I did what any culturally sensitive person would have done. I grabbed my camera and took a tour of the neighbourhood. There are many self-serving travellers who would/did the same in order to create “content”. I’m appalled by this approach. As a conscientious backpacker who is accepted as a local, the reason I felt it necessary to take photos was to document the storm for the local community who didn’t have cameras themselves [4]. I tagged along, then, with Lafonda’s uncles, as they toured the surrounding streets like a couple of vigilantes. Debris was strewn everywhere. One palma royale was scythed in half as though it had been punched in the stomach. Telephone poles were toppled over, their cables lying in the street and across the roofs of cars. Three giant fig trees were uprooted, one of them into a small community building.
Lafonda came for a stroll down Calle 70 to the coast. The authorities had already sent out groups of workers to begin the massive clean-up. It was impossible to walk along the central reservation pavement which split the street in two because trees, mud, water and leaves blocked the way. We had to weave our way down, crossing the street and back again to dodge the floods and trees.
The reason I’d wanted to walk to the coast was to survey the damage done by the sea. While hoping no-one died, I was also hoping to discover a true disaster zone [5]. Sadly, Radio Reloj’s predicted storm surge failed to develop, and while it certainly had threatened the ground floor reception of, say, Hotel Panorama, it didn’t flood it. That said, the ocean swell was impressive. With the winds still strong, the coast - usually calm and flat - boiled with rage. Waves crashed on the rocks and water surged 10, 20, 30 metres up to the pathway and as far as la primera. It was so impressive that a small crowd gathered to watch and take photographs. In one dangerous case, however, it was more than photographs.
As Lafonda and I stood on the pathway we noticed, along with others, a man stumbling over the rocks towards the waves. Initially we assume he was just going to bathe his feet, since it was, afterall, a warm day despite the storm. But as the water raced over his feet the man kept walking, deeper and deeper until it was waist height. As we looked on, expecting/lhoping the worst, the waves became too much for him and smashed him to the ground. He was dragged 10-metres over the rough rocks until he came to a halt by a concrete bollard fixed into the rocks. The man neither shouted nor showed any sign of being in pain. Instead, he pushed himself up and sat on the bollard as though nothing had happened. As though he didn’t have blood streaming down his back from an open wound.
DAMAGE INSPECTION: Lafonda’s tios tour the neighbourhood on the morning after Hurricane Irma came and went.
After a few seconds he stood up and did exactly the same. It now dawned on me the man was deliberately trying to drown himself. A young Cuban man, reading my thoughts and pre-empting my actions, ran into the water until it was up to his knees and called for the man to come back. It was exactly what I had planned to do but it made no sense for both of us to risk our lives to bring him back. So I stayed put. Within seconds the man was felled by another wave and aquaplaned across the rocks once more. The outgoing surge began dragging him back towards the ocean and he spun 360 degrees. Fortunately, the young Cuban man, doing what I would have been doing had he not pushed in front of me, grabbed the man by the forearm and held him until the water passed.
I waded into the water now and helped haul him to his feet. He was tall and heavy.
“Que haces, hombre?” I said once he was upright. The man mumbled back in Russian and it was then I realised, smelling the vodka on his breath, that he was drunk.
We walked him back to the pathway and stood with him looking at the impressive surf. He still showed no signs of pain, despite the cuts and bruises. Lafonda tried to speak to him in Russian, but he was so drunk he could barely mumble. After a few minutes he stepped over to a small rock pool and sat down in it to clean his wounds. The water turned red. He seemed to have learned his lesson.
Unbelievably, however, he hadn’t. After about five-minutes of washing the blood from his arms he stood up and walked back towards the waves. The Cuban man and I looked at each other and sighed. We agreed it was too risky for us to follow him out there. The waves were too strong. It’s a strange sensation knowing you’re about to watch a person die. We just didn’t know whether it would be by drowning or by sustaining a head injury on the rocks. Inevitably, the Russian got waist height once more before a huge wave battered him to the ground and dragged him over the rocks again. Against my better judgement I waded in and, along with the Cuban man, pulled him up. His back was covered him huge tennis ball-sized welts and bruises, and at least five deep gashes criss-crossed his shoulders and back. His left elbow appeared to be broken or dislocated and jutted out at a painful angle. The Russian still made no noise, but he seemed aware now of the injuries and looked curiously at his bent elbow without saying a word.
He didn’t go back in. After standing with him for another 10-minutes, he turned on his heel and limped his way up Calle 70. We trailed him, to make sure he was ok. It turned out he was staying in the Hotel Memories Miramar la Habana, but he’d disappeared by the time we got to the reception. He may have been severely injured but, concentrating on the positives, I reasoned it was, likely, one less sex tourist on the streets. It would be days before he’d be able to move again
Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean that day, claiming 134 lives in total. Cuba got off lightly by comparison. Though many cayos along the north coast we’re razed, only 10 lives were lost that day. The thought that it could have been 11 had it not been for my actions is truly humbling.
[1] Radio Reloj is a news radio station where presenters must deliver the news, and constant time updates, against the ever present sound of a ticking clock. Rrrrrradio Rrrrrreloj
[2] I’m reliably informed state-rationed coffee is bulked out with roasted ground chickpeas.
[3] Sure, the rest of the family did just that, but they’re used to going hungry. As for me, I had to insist on those eggs, even if they were the last two in the house, and even if it did mean Lafonda’s two-year old niece had to go without.
[4] And, at only 5 pesos convertibles per print, most locals would only have to forgo a couple of weeks’ worth of luxuries - such as internet access and toilet paper - in order to afford one.
[5] Not necessarily one littered with bodies.