President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez visited Guamá in Santiago de Cuba to oversee recovery efforts following Hurricane Melissa. Accompanied by officials, he assessed damage to roads and isolated communities. Residents expressed gratitude for the support while highlighting remaining challenges.
President of the National Defense Council Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez began his second day touring eastern Cuba in the municipality of Guamá, Santiago de Cuba, where Hurricane Melissa made landfall with full destructive force. He arrived in Santiago de Cuba on Tuesday night from Río Cauto, Granma, and immediately held a meeting with the Provincial Defense Council to assess recovery efforts in the most damaged area by the storm's winds and rains.
On Wednesday morning, together with Roberto Morales Ojeda, member of the Political Bureau and secretary of organization of the Party's Central Committee, a team of ministers, and the main authorities of Santiago de Cuba, he traveled along the Granma Highway to Babujal. At this point, the road connecting the city to Pilón was cut off by the combined force of winds, rains, and waves. Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, president of the Provincial Defense Council of Santiago de Cuba, explained to Díaz-Canel that from there and two other similar landslides further on, it is impossible to reach communities like Palma Mocha, La Cueva, and La Plata by road, which have been isolated since Melissa passed, necessitating helicopter deliveries of food and medicine.
The Cuban president spoke with the first deputy minister of construction, Ángel Vilaragut, and heads of local construction companies about the strategy to restore the road as soon as possible, because, he said, 'now Guamá is divided in two.' Díaz-Canel also checked the condition of the Uvero Bridge, rendered impassable by a sinkhole at its eastern entrance, where a specialized brigade is already working to fill it in, though a detour had to be set up for traffic flow.
The president called for the reinforcement of construction engineering brigades and for a lasting solution for this beautiful road between the Caribbean Sea and the Sierra Maestra to withstand future extreme weather events. In the Aserradero People's Council, where the eye of the hurricane lingered for 35 to 40 minutes, he spoke with residents; 938 of 1,932 homes were damaged, according to Norelvis Pérez Sánchez, president of the People's Council. Construction supplies are arriving, including 2,500 fiber cement tiles.
In the small village of Cojímar, all 187 houses were affected, and residents are immersed in recovery with great solidarity, repairing roofs and cooking traditional caldosa soup amid music and joy. The president stopped to encourage them, and they embraced him, thanking for the help and sending affectionate greetings to Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, 'who loves this humble people so much,' as one elderly resident put it.
In El Cobre, 52% of homes suffered damage, especially roofs of tiles and zinc, affecting 17,000 inhabitants, more than 30,000 including surrounding villages. Locals view Melissa as stronger than Sandy. Restoration has begun at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, with technical cooperation from the Office of the Historian of Havana for its centuries-old stained glass windows. The parish and town provide drinking water and cell phone charging. Residents expressed gratitude for actions taken but voiced dissatisfaction over delays in reaching remote communities and pre-existing issues like drinking water service.