Posted on Sun, Aug. 31, 2008
By MIAMI HERALD STAFF
cuba@MiamiHerald.com
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba --
Some residents of picturesque Los Palacios, in the province of Pinar del
Río, have already rebaptized their town: They now call it The Ruins.
In the storm Cuban authorities are saying was the worst here in 50 years
-- one that registered unprecedented wind speeds -- Los Palacios, the
main town of the municipality by the same name, has the dubious
distinction of being the first that lay directly in the path of
Hurricane Gustav.
Its pastel-colored houses collapsed. Cars went flying. Power and phone
lines throughout the city tumbled. Critical tobacco installations
suffered serious damages in a region known for some of the world's most
famous cigars. At least 10 army trucks and several bulldozers charged
into the community Sunday to begin cleanup.
''The devil came through here,'' said Juan Carlos Rodríguez, who works
for the municipal school management office and spent the night guarding
the building.
``It swept it completely.''
Gustav made landfall Saturday evening as a Category 4 hurricane with up
to 212 mph gusts, Cuban meteorologists said, sweeping by in just four
hours and leaving a path of devastation. In a testament to the Cuban
government's unparalleled hurricane preparedness system, no deaths were
reported. Some 250,000 people had been evacuated in four provinces.
Authorities said many people were injured in the Isle of Youth just
south of mainland Cuba, but little information trickled in from that
region, which lost telephone service.
Rodríguez estimates that 90 percent of the homes in Los Palacios were
affected, as well as some 50 percent of the electrical infrastructure.
Candelaria, a municipality in eastern Pinar del Río, also saw extensive
damage, the government said.
The town of Paso Real in Los Palacios suffered ''totally devastated,''
Juventud Rebelde reported.
''This is very sad. It's unbearable to watch,'' a woman said, as she
burst into tears and walked away without giving her name.
An elderly man gathered pieces of clay tiles with a hoe. A few blocks
ahead, a woman swept her wet front porch. There was no flooding in Los
Palacios, but the rain seeped into many homes and also fell directly
into those that lost the roof. Some people stood in the street and
formed small groups to exchange their experiences.
''It was horrendous,'' said Alberto García, a 68-year-old retiree.
Authorities called the storm damage the worst since 1956. The 212-mph
gusts registered in the city of Paso Real de San Diego were the highest
in Cuba's history, according to the provincial newspaper, the
Guerrillero. Winds were so strong that the weather station instruments
broke.
The Cuban AIN government news agency said Army Gen. Leopoldo Cintras
Frias toured Pinar del Río with the provincial civil defense leader and
found massive damage to homes, tobacco installations, electric and
telephone lines.
In one six-mile stretch alone, the government reported, dozens of
electric towers were downed.
''Things that seemed safe are damaged,'' Ana Isa Delgado, president of
the municipal civil defense committee was quoted saying in Sunday's
state media. ``Cars in parking lots went flying. Others are twisted.
Rooftop water tanks, window and doors have been ripped out. Avenues are
unpassable.''
The highway to Pinar del Río on Sunday offered some inkling of the
devastation to come. Tree branches partially blocked the road and the
electric towers by the side of the road lay on the ground in a twisted
mass like a row of fallen dominoes as far as the eye could see. The
force of the wind decimated entire fields of banana trees.
At a police control station, all the lampposts toppled over and the
metal mobile structure lay upside down in a ditch.
In San Cristóbal, fallen branches and tree trunks blocked the main
street into the town. Many houses lost their roofs or were flooded.
But destruction in Los Palacios, a few miles ahead, reached worse levels.
Debris was scattered everywhere on the wet streets, in many cases
blocking the roads -- tree branches, downed power lines, tiles, masonry
from ornamental columns, pieces of wood, doors, blue telephone booths
and corrugated metal sheets that once served as roofs. Oddly, a
community garden stood unharmed, its vegetable rows lined up in perfect
order. Dogs and chicken roamed the streets.
The main school building lost all the windows on the upper floor. Many
houses lost their roofs and others collapsed completely.
''This has been the worst,'' Rodríguez added. ``It will take us at least
six months to get back to a basic level of infrastructure.''
There was no electricity, no gas, no fuel and no water, although
Rodríguez said residents had enough drinking water stored for 72 hours.
Some residents sat on their porch or leaned against their front door,
looking dazed. Others carried buckets or plastic bags filled with
personal belongings and many started the cleanup process, even as a
light rain fell.
''I stayed in my closet with my two children and prayed the whole
time,'' said Mabel Ayerbe, a 36 year-old housewife and mother of two
boys, ages 5 and 6. ``The little one was crying and the older one wanted
to see the wind. The first pass took about two hours. Then we were in
the eye for some 45 minutes and the weather was totally clear. After the
eye it lost some strength but the first pass was violent.''
''I don't want to see this again,'' she said. ``It was terrible. We no
longer call this Los Palacios. It is now The Ruins.''
José, 56, who did not want his last name published, said that the wind
gusts were so strong, they ripped water tanks off the roof.
''This has been a disaster,'' he said. ``My roof caved in.''
Los Palacios is about 20 miles from the coast. Many of the residents
have second homes on the beach. The sea surged five miles inland and
they had no idea Sunday how their houses fared because authorities
blocked access to the area, García said.
Ayerbe tried to remain upbeat.
''We Cubans are optimists,'' he said. ''We'll see how we work it out and
p'alante!'' -- onward!
Gustav traveled about 100 miles when it entered Cajio and left the city
of La Palma at 9:10 p.m., the state media said. The eye crossed at a
speed of 11 miles an hour and was 37 miles wide.
''Even though the damages caused by this event are still being
evaluated, we were informed that it abandoned the area after leaving
considerable damages to houses, schools, clinics and other buildings of
community use,'' Prensa Latina reported. ``The information is
preliminary, but it's certain that Gustav was an unprecedented event for
the region, not only for its destructive force, but also for its
extraordinary records.''
''We've lived through tense and complex moments, although we pinarenos
have experiences confronting situations like this one, but some of the
older folks here say its been a long time since they saw anything like
it,'' said Olga Lidia Tapia, president of the Pinar del Rio's provincial
civil defense council.
The area mostly suffered wind damage, Tapia said especially in the
eastern area of the province, including Los Palacios, La Palma, San
Cristobal, Candelaria and Bahia Honda.
The government media said the damage was so bad, the name ''Gustav'' may
have to get scratched off the list of potential future hurricanes -- a
move only taken in the worst of natural disasters.
This article was reported by a Miami Herald correspondent in Cuba, whose
name is being withheld because the journalist did not have the
journalism visa required by the Cuban government. Miami Herald
correspondent Frances Robles contributed from Miami.
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