Category 5 Hurricane Melissa, with winds up to 280 km/h, approaches eastern Cuba tonight, finding the region in extreme vulnerability due to blackouts, food shortages, and limited information. Residents report minimal preparations and rely more on social media than state media to track the storm. Flooding and heavy rains are expected in the eastern provinces.
Hurricane Melissa, which rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to Category 5 over the weekend, threatens to cross eastern Cuba starting from the south and exiting through Holguín province. With sustained winds of 280 km/h, the cyclone has already caused three deaths each in Jamaica and Haiti, and one in the Dominican Republic, according to international reports. In Cuba, meteorological alerts indicate that flooding and heavy rains could begin tonight.
In Holguín, Lien Estrada describes the region as the country's most vulnerable, far from Havana and hit by a crisis including shortages of water, food, electricity, and transportation, with high living costs. 'You don’t know what’s harder—finding the hammer or driving the nail,' she writes in her diary. Residents face scheduled blackouts of over 12 hours daily, and in areas like Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba, outages exceed expectations, collapsing rotation schedules.
A young woman from Holguín tells 14ymedio: 'We know more about Melissa from Facebook than from Cubavisión.' Preparations are minimal: trees have not been trimmed on routes like the one to Gibara, and evacuations are limited, though Civil Defense is active and the church in El Cobre offers shelter. In Baracoa, families like Dosiel's reinforce roofs with sandbags and stock basic foods like sugar, hot dogs, and canned sardines, recalling damage from past hurricanes like Sandy in 2012.
The Electric Company prioritizes power for the east, but this worsens outages elsewhere. Food prices rise: a pound of black beans went from 380 to 410 pesos in Holguín. There are fears of post-storm disease outbreaks and destruction of material heritage. Despite desperation, Estrada highlights neighborly solidarity, with churches opening spaces and communities helping each other.
Organizations like PETA recommend emergency plans for pets in affected rural and mountainous areas.
