Fleeing storms is routine in western Cuba

Fleeing storms is routine in western Cuba
By Ian Katz
Havana Bureau

June 14, 2006

RIO SECO, Cuba · After two days and 17 inches of rain, the water climbed
to waist level in Neuca Ajete's small brick house.

But Ajete, her husband and four daughters were gone. Before Tropical
Storm Alberto hit Río Seco, about 110 miles west of Havana, the family
shoved its roosters into a shed, wedged the mattresses up against the
house's ceiling, and moved to a friend's home on higher ground.

Ajete's house withstood the flood, and by Tuesday, two days after the
water rose to its highest point, life was back to normal. The roosters
were splashing through puddles while Ajete's 5-year-old twins watched TV
inside.

Like almost everyone in the low-lying areas of western Cuba's Pinar del
Río province, Ajete has become an expert at evacuating. In Río Seco and
nearby San Juan y Martínez, families have lost count of how many times
they have packed up in the face of storms.

Ajete thinks her family fled three times last year alone. In 2002,
Hurricanes Isidore and Lili blew down Ajete's mother's weaker wooden
house next door.

"We don't think of [evacuating] as a bother because it's to save our
lives," Ajete, 35, said as one of the family's two pigs slept at her
feet outside the front door.

The storm forced more than 25,000 people to evacuate in Pinar del Río.
No deaths were reported, and damage to buildings was minimal. Government
media reported that some yucca, plantain, squash and corn crops had been
ruined.

Fleeing storms is considered less of an option than an obligation in
Cuba. The country's Civil Defense orders people to leave their homes
when an evacuation plan is in place. Government agencies offer
transportation to those who don't have it.

On Tuesday, Nieves Pedraja was back at her aquamarine-colored wooden
house in San Juan y Martínez after having evacuated with her elderly
mother and her daughters, ages 6 and 3. She was wearing rubber boots and
sweeping the water off the home's concrete floors.

The house was in good shape, but some food and a lot of clothes in the
closet were ruined. She figures it was at least the fifth time they have
evacuated in the past three years.

"If we could, we would move to a higher place," she said. "We just don't
have the money."

But many people in the area would never consider moving. "Why would I do
that?" said next-door neighbor Juan Carlos Hernandez, who evacuated with
his wife and two sons.

Even the rain isn't all bad, he said. When the nearby rivers overflow,
"I can catch all the catfish and tilapia I want."

Ian Katz can be reached at katzincuba@yahoo.com.

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