Leaving the Hurricane Behind

CUBA:
Leaving the Hurricane Behind
By Dalia Acosta

HOLGUÍN, Aug 11 (IPS) - Debris of houses, roofless buildings and fallen
trees are still routine sights along the 740-km drive from the Cuban
capital to Holguín, one of the regions most heavily affected by
Hurricane Ike in early September, 2008.

Ike radically modified the landscape along the main avenue through the
town of Florida, halfway from Havana to Holguín. The natural canopy
formed over the road by enormous trees, one of the main attractions
along the highway running through central Cuba, is gone without leaving
a trace of the soothing shade it provided.

Aerial shots taken after Ike tore through nearly the entire eastern
province of Holguín - the third-most populous in the country, accounting
for over nine percent of the population of 11.2 million - show the
lasting damages it caused.

"I had never been so scared," said Liset Fernández, an employee at a
state enterprise in the city of Gibara. "We didn't get any sleep at all
that night, and when we went outside the next day we couldn't believe
what we were seeing. Gibara had become a different city. Entire
neighbourhoods had turned into rubble and the seawall had almost
disappeared."

"You wish that all of the problems were solved, but that's impossible,"
said Fernández, 43, who lost part of her roof during the storm. "But in
this city, the work has continued every single day."

Fixing or replacing damaged homes has been a top priority of the
government since Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma slammed the island
between Aug. 30 and Nov. 9, 2008, causing more than 10 billion dollars
in losses, damaging over half a million homes and leaving homeless or
otherwise affecting more than two million people.

However, only seven people died, thanks to the country's well-oiled
evacuation system.

In nine months, the country has solved some 270,000 of the housing and
other building problems caused by the storm, but there are still 330,000
pending, the head of the National Housing institute, Víctor Ramírez,
reported to parliament on Jul. 30.

In the repair process, the focus is on homes with solid,
"hurricane-proof" roofs.

Ramírez said the process of rebuilding and replacing homes damaged or
destroyed by the three hurricanes is affected by the fact that
three-fourths of the damages to housing, businesses or other buildings
were heavily concentrated in 49 municipalities in five specific areas.

Concentration of damages

Nearly 125,000 of the 530,332 housing units damaged or destroyed
nationwide are located in Holguín province, which, although it adopted
the prevention measures outlined by the civil defence department, was
not used to such strong storms.

But several months after the start of the so-called "recovery phase,"
Miguel Díaz-Canel – a former provincial secretary of the governing
Communist Party, who is now Cuba's minister of higher education – told
IPS that Holguín "has developed the capacity to overcome adversity.

"The province is now prepared to withstand future hurricanes," he said.
"Obviously, each new catastrophe brings complex situations and
aggravates existing ones, but what cannot be allowed to diminish is the
capacity to confront adversity."

Official sources reported that as of late July, 57 percent of the
damaged or destroyed housing in Holguín province had been restored or
rebuilt.

Thanks to resources assigned by the state, local production of building
materials, and the use of 85 percent of the more than 133,000 Cuban
royal palm (Roystonea regia) trees toppled by Ike, 4,078 damaged homes
and 2,176 collapsed homes have been repaired and rebuilt.

Nevertheless, 10,141 families are still living in temporary shelters
built with materials from their original homes which were knocked down
by the storm. Most of these makeshift shelters consist of one
living/bedroom area, a kitchen and a bathroom, but they at least provide
the families with privacy.

In addition, 152 families in Holguín continue to live in buildings
designated by the civil defence department for use as temporary
evacuation centres during emergencies, even though they are not designed
to house families for long periods of time.

"Of the original total of 90,221 people who were housed in these
shelters, we still have 468 living in 23 evacuation centres in 10
municipalities in the province," Vivian Rodríguez, president of the
Provincial Assembly (the local government) in Holguín, responded to a
question from IPS during a meeting with the press in that city.

"Many of these people are building their homes, a process that requires
significant resources. The strategy involves 22 new settlements, and
around 5,000 housing units are in the pipeline. The priority is to
replace homes that were totally demolished, and to provide people with
decent housing," said Rodríguez.

Relocating families away from the sea

A total of 46 of what are referred to as "petro-casas" or "petro-homes",
donated by the Venezuelan government, now house families who lost their
homes in Gibara. In their new neighbourhood, named "Pueblo Nuevo" (New
Town), the families are now far removed from the dangerous coastline
where many of them lived before Ike came through.

Official sources in Venezuela say the houses, based on polyvinyl
chloride (PVC) components, are safe for human health. Families moved
into a similar neighbourhood, made up of 100 petro-casas, earlier this
year in the central Cuban city of Cienfuegos.

Caletones, a small fishing and resort village 20 km from Gibara, will
also be relocated a safe distance from the sea. In that area, the storm
surge flooded one kilometre inland when Ike hit, leaving only a few
solidly-built cabins constructed by government companies standing.

"It's true that not all of the needs of families in Gibara have been
satisfied, but a large number of people have returned to their homes and
are living in better conditions than before the storm," Rosa María
Leyva, Communist Party secretary in Gibara, 775 km from Havana, told IPS.

To that end, the municipal government was assigned special equipment and
the resources necessary to form two construction brigades whose members
will receive training and higher than average wages over a period of at
least two years.

Leyva said the policy followed by the government is focused on improving
pre-hurricane living conditions, fomenting local production of
construction materials, not rebuilding in areas near the coast, and
relocating as many families as possible away from the shore.

But pointing out that seven seaside neighbourhoods in Gibara were
totally wiped out by Ike, Leyva said that with thousands of families who
have not yet received the resources and materials needed to rebuild
their homes, it is impossible to relocate all vulnerable coastal
settlements at this point.

"We cannot destroy the homes that were left standing. What has been
decided, though, is that no new homes will be built in those areas. We
have helped families who lost their roofs, but the focus is on trying to
remove as many families as possible from the coastal areas, for their
protection." (END/2009)

CUBA: Leaving the Hurricane Behind - IPS ipsnews.net (11 August 2009)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48036