Havana, Oct 28 (EFE). – Cuba is preparing on Tuesday for the arrival of Hurricane Melissa, one of the largest in history, as the island experiences its worst crisis in decades.
The Category 5 hurricane, which ravaged Jamaica, is expected to make landfall early Wednesday morning in the east, near Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second city.
Melissa will make landfall in Cuba as a category 3 or 4 storm, according to forecasts, moving northeast with sustained winds of more than 124 miles per hour (almost 200 km per hour), heavy rains that could leave up to 450 millimeters (1.7 inches), and storm surges with waves up to six meters (19 ft) high.
The effects are feared to be devastating. Cuban authorities have warned of the risk to life posed by Melissa due to the likelihood of flash flooding, sea surges in low-lying coastal areas, landslides, and even dam breaches.
In the six provinces under hurricane warning (Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguín, Las Tunas, and Camagüey), nearly 650,000 people have been evacuated, around 7% of the total population.
Public land, sea, and air transport have been paralyzed throughout the eastern region; schools have also been suspended; and state infrastructure and crops have been secured.
Two of the country’s seven thermoelectric power plants, the backbone of the National Electric System (SEN), have already been shut down for safety reasons, and experts fear they will suffer damage, especially given their age and lack of maintenance.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Melissa will be one of the biggest hurricanes to hit the country and that the devastation will be extensive.
“There will be a lot of work to do. We know that this cyclone will cause a lot of damage,” he said.
Díaz-Canel also called on his fellow citizens to act “responsibly,” exercise caution, and follow the authorities’ recommendations.
Melissa will hit Cuba during its worst economic crisis in decades, after more than five years of economic contraction, high inflation, shortages of basic goods (food, fuel, and medicine), a sharp loss of purchasing power for state employees and pensioners, growing dollarization, the collapse of the peso on the informal market, and mass migration.
Additionally, frequent breakdowns in the obsolete thermoelectric power plants and the lack of foreign currency to import fuel have been causing blackouts of over 20 hours a day in large areas of the country for months.
It is assumed that this hurricane will damage the National Electric System (SEN), and many fear a national blackout from which the island will take several days to recover, as happened with Hurricanes Ian (2022) and Rafael (2024).
Finally, the island is increasingly mired in a health crisis, with an uncontrolled surge in cases of dengue, oropouche, and chikungunya, all mosquito-borne diseases, which are overwhelming hospital capacities in some regions.
The Ministry of Public Health recently acknowledged more than 13,000 cases of suspected dengue, Oropouche, or chikungunya fever in just one week, one per thousand of the Cuban population in seven days.
Experts believe the spread of these diseases is linked, among other factors, to the lack of fumigation, the accumulation of garbage in the streets, and the deterioration of primary care.
The last category 5 hurricane to hit Cuba was Irma in 2017, which left 10 people dead and caused damage estimated at 13 billion dollars.
The most recent cyclone to affect Santiago de Cuba was Sandy in 2012, which caused 11 deaths and severe damage to the city.
In the previous hurricane season, two hurricanes directly hit the island. Oscar, which struck the eastern part of the country in October 2024 as a Category 1 hurricane, and then a month later, Rafael, a Category 3 hurricane, battered western Cuba. EFE
jpm/mcd
