Tropical Storm Laura batters Cuba as other Caribbean nations assess damage
Cuba has been spared the worst of Tropical Storm Laura, which was battering most of the island Monday with heavy rains and coastal swells in low-lying areas without causing the kind of catastrophic damage seen in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The storm was moving along the island’s southern coast on Monday, leaving behind 20 dead, five missing, and four injured in Haiti. Four more deaths were reported in the Dominican Republic.
At 8 p.m., its center was 140 miles from Cabo San Antonio, the western tip of Cuba. Radar images showed the storm was already crossing over Pinar del Río, the island’s westernmost province. Laura is expected to move away from Cuba and over the Gulf of Mexico overnight.
To the relief of Havana residents, José Rubiera, Cuba’s top meteorologist, said on state television that there was no danger of flooding at the capital’s seawall.
The National Civil Defense issued a “cyclonic alarm” advisory for all the eastern and central provinces, except Camagüey. As of Monday afternoon, no deaths or significant damage were reported.
As the storm left the eastern side of the island during the morning, the local press reported power outages and many fallen trees. In Santiago de Cuba, there were interruptions in the telephone service that began Sunday night. According to the official newspaper Granma, preliminary reports in Guantánamo show damages to banana crops and the roofs of houses and state institutions.
According to Radio Bayamo, firefighters also extinguished two large fires at a school and a poultry farm in Santiago de Cuba.
Some rural communities in the mountains of Granma province have been cut off due to river flooding, local newspaper La Demajagua reported. Images from the coastal city of Baracoa, in Holguín, show the storm’s waves spilling over the city’s seawall and beyond on Sunday.
After hopes that Laura would weaken after passing through the mountainous Hispaniola faded, the government rushed evacuations in coastal cities and near rivers. Nine thousand people were evacuated in Cauto Cristo, a community in the eastern province of Granma near the Cauto, Cuba’s longest river. Another 400 people were evacuated in the coastal city of Santa Cruz del Sur in Camagüey. In Villa Clara, in the center of the country, the government organized the evacuation of about 45,000 people. In all cases, most took shelter in the homes of family members and neighbors.
By the end of the morning, heavy rains were pouring over the island’s central region.
“About an hour ago it started to rain very hard, and the wind increased. Right now, we are all locked in the house,” said Fidel Prieto from Trinidad, a city in central Cuba.
In Topes de Collantes, a mountainous community in Sancti Spíritus, almost five inches of rainfall in the center of the island were reported in the morning. In Manicaragua, a village in the mountains of Villa Clara, the storm stripped roofs away, toppled trees and telephone poles, and left residents without power.
Residents of the city of Ciego de Ávila, also in central Cuba, woke up Monday without water service due to a power outage. According to local press reports, coastal flooding began in the afternoon in Trinidad’s vicinity and the southern coast of Ciego de Ávila province.
As it passed near Cienfuegos, Laura left fallen trees and a large part of the city without electricity.
“In the Villuendas park some trees fell. Also several lamp posts on Gloria Street. At the moment, almost the entire city is without electricity even though the winds are not that strong,” said Eugenio Vélez, a resident in the historic city center.
But local authorities said the storm’s damage does not appear to be significant.
Damages in the Caribbean
Other Caribbean countries, in contrast, are still assessing the damages and cleaning up the wreckage left in the wake of the storm.
In Haiti, where Laura left at least 20 people dead, the storm flooded homes, carved roads in half and caused landslides that peeled off mountains. In some communities, relatives were searching through debris and rubble Monday for missing loved ones, while disaster officials said they were awaiting reports from the provinces.
Jerry Chandler, the head of Haiti’s Office of Civil Protection, said the hydroelectric dam Péligre that was in danger of bursting after the water in the river rose, appeared to be in good shape. The rising water, he said, was gradually released.
Coastal communities in the south were inaccessible Monday after four bridges that connected the towns of Rochea-Bateau, Coteaux and Chardonnières were damaged by Laura.
In the south, sections of roads were also damaged between various towns, while roads were also cut off.
At least 15 houses were reported destroyed while another 135 were damaged and 447 flooded. The Artibonite River, which is a major waterway, was also overflowing.
The government is planning to deploy 3,000 food kits from Port-au-Prince Tuesday morning. Another 10,000 food kits will also be distributed to residents of Pélerin 1 and 2 and Cite Soleil in the capital. Shelter kits were also being prepared for at least 800 displaced families.
In the Dominican Republic, many communities remained isolated Monday due to power outages and impassable roads. Fifty-six communities remain incommunicado. More than 700,000 people are still suffering from power outages and more than 1.5 million from interruptions in water service.
The director of the Center for Emergency Operations, Juan Manuel Méndez, asked the population to “not let their guard down” because the rain will continue throughout the day.
President-elect Luis Abinader visited the province of Pedernales, an area along the Haiti-Dominican border that was hit especially hard by flooding, and again promised help for communities located in areas vulnerable to damage by storms.
“These people living in high-risk zones are going to be relocated, and the government is going to provide another place because we need to find a long-term solution,“ Abinader said.
As Laura continued to move south of Cuba on Monday, its impact was being felt in Jamaica, where there were breaks in rainfall during the course of the day Monday, but bands of showers and thunderstorms persisted. The storm washed out bridges, eroded embankments and turned roads into muddy rivers. Public works employees spent much of the day trying to clear roads blocked by fallen rocks, downed trees and landslides.
Among the damages, according to the Jamaica police service: a bridge in the parish of St. Thomas washed away, preventing residents of Trinityville, Georgia and Cedar Valley from leaving their communities.
In the nearby Cayman Islands, residents also faced windy conditions and heavy rains. The British territory’s Hazard Management agency said there were few reports of damage on land, but rough waves on the normally calm west side of Grand Cayman resulted in boats sinking and some breaking their moorings and washing ashore.
In Puerto Rico, the storm’s effects on the island’s already-battered agriculture was of great worry to farmers.
José Araus, who manages multiple plantain and eggplant crops in the municipality of Salinas, said that Laura caused losses of 75 to 100 percent in Salinas’ agricultural zone, according to local outlets.
Puerto Rico’s agricultural sector has been recovering since Hurricane Maria, which wiped out 100% of coffee and plantain crops on the island. The September 2017 storm caused more than $2 billion in damages and killed around 5,000 cattle on the island. Tropical storm Isaias, in late July, caused crop losses of $47.5 million across the island, according to the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture.
Laura’s impact on food production and availability is also a primary concern in Cuba, where severe shortages of food have become part of everyday life.
“There is hardly anything to buy at stores. Everything is empty,” said Ofelia Lara from Cienfuegos.
Lara, 69, said she fears for what will come in the weeks ahead.
“Before the cyclone, we didn’t have rice or beans ... I had to spend my entire government pension to buy five pounds of meat, and you can’t even find squash in the market,” she said. “Can you imagine what will happen when the rains and the wind destroy what little there is?”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 4:23 PM.