The Navy began evacuating hundreds of U.S. citizens and their pets to Florida from the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay on Saturday, days ahead of the possible arrival of a major hurricane in that portion of eastern Cuba.
More than 4,000 people live on the base, about one-fourth of them active-duty sailors and soldiers. The rest include Navy families, kindergarten through high school teachers, hospital staff and hundreds of Jamaican and Filipino workers on long-term Defense Department contracts.
The National Hurricane Center said on Saturday that Tropical Storm Melissa had intensified into a hurricane. Projections from the center on Saturday afternoon showed that Melissa could go through Jamaica on Monday as a major hurricane and reach Guantánamo Bay before dawn Wednesday.
The evacuations began on a rolling basis on Friday, when the base commander ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees “to relocate to a designated safe haven on the mainland,” ICE said in a statement.
By Saturday, the base commander had expanded the evacuation order to include “non-mission-essential U.S. citizens,” who were told to pack bags of up to 40 pounds and prepare to board charter planes to Florida throughout the day Saturday or Sunday.
The first group of family members began streaming to the airstrip on Saturday morning, with babies in strollers and dogs in travel crates, according to residents who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were told not to talk to reporters. They were being flown first to Miami to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for entry into the United States, but did not expect to stay there.
“Despite all the chaos, the long lines in Cuban heat, packed buses, packed ferry and packed terminal, everyone has been relatively pleasant,” said one resident who was being evacuated.
Those leaving were told they could be housed in Florida for up to two weeks before returning. In the past, the military sent evacuees to a naval air station in Pensacola. Some residents of the base were told they might be going to Fort Lauderdale.
The 45-square-mile base has several potential vulnerabilities in the event of a major hurricane, including temporary trailer parks that have been set up in the two decades since the Pentagon began holding prisoners of the war against terrorism there but which might not withstand heavy rains and wind.
Even before the tropical storm formed into a hurricane, the base began shutting down most weekend activities. It canceled Friday night’s premiere of the new Bruce Springsteen biopic, “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” shut down the bay to pleasure boating and diving and closed the nine-hole golf course.
Carol Rosenberg reports on the wartime prison and court at Guantánamo Bay. She has been covering the topic since the first detainees were brought to the U.S. base in 2002.
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