July 15, 2005
Socialism and the hurricane
By: Zarathustra
[Comments by a Spaniard was visiting Havana when hurricane Dennis hit.]
A CubaNews translation by Ana Portela.
Edited by Walter Lippmann
http://www.jrebelde.cubaweb.cu/2005/julio-septiembre/jul-15/opinion.html
The terrible hurricane that crossed the island of Cuba from Friday, July 8, to Saturday 9 left a balance of16 deaths and important destruction in all parts of the economic life of the country. When hurricane Dennis touched land in the province of Cienfuegos, wind force was more than 200 kilometers an hour – force 4 in a scale of 5 – and found a socialist country in a state of emergency. The hurricane began to lose force as it moved towards the northwest and when it exited near Havana. The winds were no more than one hundred kilometers an hour. However, it caused torrential rains that caused serious flooding in the provinces of Villa Clara and Matanzas.
In a review of the damages after the passage of this impressive and unusual freak of nature – no other has been registered of such intensity in Cuba during the month of July – it is surprising to learn publicly of the evaluation made by the authorities of the country.
Thousands of persons were evacuated with impeccable order and moved to higher ground. All involved in this mass movement noted the almost total collaboration of the Cuban people with the preventive measures that were key to attenuating the crisis. Material damages have been great according to estimates of the assembly presidents of the Provincial Peoples Power in the central areas that were most affected. They would have been greater were it not for the measures of the people and the authorities.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday 9, one third of electricity in the country was restored as well as the greater part of highway transportation systems, and serious work is advancing in the work to supply water and gas to the homes as well as the repair of telecommunications and rail transportation.
On Friday, July 8, the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz participated for two hours in the Round Table broadcast every afternoon on Cuban television. For the second consecutive day he converted the television studio into a general headquarters for coordination in the preparation of national defense against the catastrophe. Viewed by all of Cuba, the extraordinary volume of information was managed in every detail, small and large, of resistance to the hurricane in each province. At approximately six in the afternoon, Fidel informed that the hurricane had past 300 kilometers from the western coast of Haiti causing at least 18 deaths. Shortly after he reviewed, case by case, the circumstances of the deaths registered in Cuba due to the first affectations of the hurricane.
Present in all Round Tables between Thursday and Saturday, was Dr. José Rubiera, director of the Forecast Center of the Cuban Institute of Meteorology. He gave explicit and detailed explanations with satellite images in real time, about everything related to the atmospheric phenomenon.
During the last hour of the Round Table on Friday, Dr. José Rubiera looked terribly tired the same as all the other officials present. Everyone had to give reports to the President and television viewers about the measures taken. They received suggestions from Fidel and returned to their posts. Meantime the journalists of Cuban television made link ups with different institutions involved in the civil defense and prevention of catastrophes as, also, with the different regions affected by the hurricane.
The barriers between reality and television were broken. This was not a performance; they were real co ordinations, on a national scale, measures against the imminent catastrophe. The amount of information at the disposal of the Cubans was always abundant and dealt with every detail of technical problems, of generation of electricity, of each line of transportation or the evacuation of any locality. And this coordination reached every corner of Cuban reality, every municipal institution of Popular Power.
The writer of this report was able to attend the visit of a delegate in one of those block institutions in a home in Havana. The delegate in question – the equivalent of an elected councilor – was concerned about the damages and needs of each family. A large part of the information on TV, Saturday, was precisely reports by different representatives of Popular Power in the most affected areas.
The deep civic-mindedness of the Cuban people should be noted. A few short hours before the hurricane reached Havana, the population was busy preparing to live two or three days without light, water or gas. The people queued up for provisions. In spite of the situation, the environment was of absolute calm and the people waited on line with a praiseworthy discipline and patience.
The general impression of this huge mobilization of a socialist country is to observe a society of responsible adult citizens, well organized, with solidarity, accustomed to confront, collectively, all kinds of situations. Cuban society has again demonstrated the enormous level of conscience, cohesion and organization and its leaders, some in simple olive green uniforms, the majority in T-shirts, with kaki trousers or jeans, perspiring like any worker, were barely different from the common people they represent.
Above all, Cuban authorities watched over human lives. They even reached the point of centrally organizing production of bread for the critical moments after the hurricane and foresaw the possibility of preparing collective cooking if the situation of provisions became worse.
Two days after the hurricane passed completely, June 11, normality returned to Havana. The most affected provinces advanced in the phase of recovery. The key word was: rapidly. In the capital provisions have been re-established, damages evaluated, streets cleaned up of fallen trees and branches. All done by the grass roots organizations of Popular Power and neighborhood solidarity.
When we walked around the tremendously resuscitated city, we remembered a walk in the city of Mexico on the summer of 1999. The numerous wounds of the earthquake that hit the city in the early 80s surprised us. In socialist Cuba it would just become water under the bridge in a few days because the meteorological giant ran into a human giant.
Extract taken from Rebelión
.