Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, warned residents to brace for a “very difficult night” as Hurricane Melissa made landfall early Wednesday.
The biggest island in the Caribbean, with a population of nearly 11 million, is no stranger to destructive storms. But as one of the strongest Atlantic storms in history slammed into the island, officials have warned of potentially widespread damage from heavy rain, flash flooding, landslides and damaging winds. The storm slammed into Jamaica on Tuesday, where officials warned it caused catastrophic damage to infrastructure.
The nation’s second-biggest city, Santiago de Cuba, is in the path of destruction, as is Guantánamo Bay, where the U.S. military base is located. More than 735,000 people had been evacuated ahead of the storm’s arrival, Mr. Díaz-Canel said on Tuesday night on social media. The U.S. Navy also evacuated hundreds of residents from its base.
The storm threatens to overwhelm the fragile infrastructure of a nation that has battled a deepening economic crisis. Power failures have frequently plunged the island into darkness, and blackouts were already occurring on Tuesday morning ahead of the storm’s arrival, according to Union Electrica, the national electricity company. On Tuesday afternoon, three provinces in the nation’s east, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo, were disconnected from the national power grid, it said.
Eastern Cuba could receive up to 20 inches of rain through Wednesday, with 25 inches expected in mountainous areas, forecasters said, warning of potentially catastrophic floods. The southeast coast could also see a life-threatening storm surge, an abnormal rise in sea level above the predicted tides that is caused by the storm’s winds pushing water.
Unlike in Jamaica, where officials said far fewer people were in government shelters than the number they expected to be displaced, Cubans have evacuated en masse. In some rural lowland areas that are vulnerable to flooding, like Valle de Caujerí, Hatibonico and San Antonio del Sur, almost the entire population has fled.
Melissa will not hit Cuba as strongly as it did Jamaica, where it made landfall as one of the strongest Category 5 storms on record. It weakened as it crossed over Jamaica but was regaining strength late Tuesday as it barreled toward Cuba and still producing 130-mile-per-hour winds, forecasters said.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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