Although Cubans have been vocal about their frustrations as the government urged them to stock up before Hurricane Melissa hit, hundreds of thousands have been moved out of high-risk zones on the island.
In contrast to Jamaica, where despite warnings from officials, only about 6,000 people had entered the country’s 800 shelters by Tuesday morning, 424,669 Cubans had evacuated by that time, according to Cuban state figures.
In Guantánamo, Cuba’s most easterly province, evacuations have been taking place since the weekend. In poor, rural lowlands exposed to flooding like the Valle de Caujerí, Hatibonico and San Antonio del Sur, the population had almost entirely moved out.
More than 13,450 people were evacuated from San Antonio del Sur on Sunday, according to official figures. Many were bused to the city of Guantánamo, about 40 miles away, where they were expected to spend the night in universities that had been turned into shelters.
“There’s nobody here — it’s been totally depopulated,” Pablo Jiménez Correa, 45, said in describing San Antonio del Sur, his hometown.
While his neighbors were evacuated in yellow school buses on Sunday, however, he said that he would spend the night huddled with his family on higher ground, a mile from town. He was confident that his concrete house and zinc roof would make it through the night even as the Category 5 storm strengthened, packing 185 m.p.h. winds. His water tank was full, he said, so they will at least have enough drinking water.
But he was worried about power outages in the coming days. He had been without electricity since Monday evening, but, he said, these days “we hardly ever have electricity.”
Cuba has struggled with a deepening economic crisis for years. Power failures have frequently plunge the island into darkness; food and medicine have become scarce; and severe fuel shortages have led to problems like high taxi fares and pileups of garbage on the streets. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has blocked tankers from delivering oil to Cuba since 2019, which has driven up the island’s fuel costs and contributed to power outages.
As Hurricane Melissa gained strength and the forecast anticipated landfall on the island overnight on Tuesday, the state-controlled news media in Cuba urged people to stock up on water and food. But ordinary residents lashed out, with some noting angrily on social media that there was hardly any food or fuel available to hoard in the impoverished country.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel deflected the criticism and said the island was “focusing its efforts on preparing the eastern provinces to face the dangerous hurricane.” Streets were being cleaned to prevent clogs in drainage systems, trees were being trimmed, and officials were evacuating vulnerable communities, he said.
In Granma Province, those living in flimsy accommodations had moved in with friends and other relatives with sturdier houses, while buses moved those living near rivers to areas farther inland.
“We’ve been going to the places where people live and bringing them to schools,” Iliana Mendez, 58, an evacuation coordinator for the country’s Civil Defense in the city of Bayamo, said in a phone interview on Tuesday. She added that the primary school near her house was holding about 60 people who live in remote areas, and had a doctor on site.
She said that she and her colleagues were helping people take their belongings to secure buildings so that they were not destroyed during the hurricane or stolen. Most evacuations on the island, she says, are optional, but for people who live by rivers or in flimsy accommodation, moving was mandatory.
“If they are in a high-risk place, they have to be evacuated whether they want to or not,” she said.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.
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