Empty streets are pictured after the landfall of Hurricane Rafael in Havana on November 6, 2024. Hurricane Rafael knocked out power to all of Cuba on Wednesday as it made landfall on the island still reeling from a recent blackout and a previous major storm, the national power company said.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Cuba was left reeling on Thursday (November 7, 2024) after a fierce Category 3 hurricane ripped across the island and knocked out the country’s power grid.

The magnitude of the impact remained unclear through the early hours of the day, but forecasters warned that Hurricane Rafael could bring “life-threatening” storm surges, winds and flash floods to Cuba after ravaging parts of the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.

On Wednesday (November 7, 2024) evening, massive waves lashed at Havana’s shores as sharp winds and rain whipped at the historic cityscape, leaving trees littered on flooded roads. Much of the city was dark and deserted.

As it plowed across Cuba, the storm slowed to a Category 2 hurricane chugging into the Gulf of Mexico near northern Mexico and southern Texas, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

But many Cubans were left picking up the pieces from the night before, with a strange sense of déjà vu after a rocky few weeks in the Caribbean nation.

In October, the island was hit by a one-two punch. First, Cuba was roiled by stretching island-wide blackouts stretching on for days, a product of the island’s energy crisis. Shortly after, it was slapped by another powerful hurricane that killed at least six people in the eastern part of the island.

It stoked discontent already simmering in Cuba amid an ongoing economic crisis, which has pushed many to migrate from Cuba.

While the State Department issued a travel warning for Cuba because of the story, the Cuban government also raised an alarm, asking citizens to hunker down.

Classes and public transport were suspended on parts of the island and authorities canceled flights in and out of Havana and Varadero. Thousands of people in the west of the island were evacuated as a preventative measure, and many more like Silvia Pérez, a 72-year-old retiree living in a coastal area of Havana, scrambled to prepare.

“This is a night I don’t want to sleep through, between the battering air and the trees,” Pérez said. “I’m scared for my friends and family.”

The concern came after the storm knocked out power in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, where it also unleased flooding and landslides.

Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted the 2024 hurricane season was likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast called for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

A hurricane was bearing down on Cuba Sunday (October 20, 2024) as the island nation’s authorities scrambled to restore power following a massive nationwide outage.

The expected arrival of Hurricane Oscar, just days after the failure of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the national grid, and piled more pressure on a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Saturday in a post on social media that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar”.

“Packing winds of 140 km (85 miles) per hour, Oscar was forecast to reach eastern Cuba on Sunday, where heavy rains are expected,” according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

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The Cuban Presidency said in another social media post that progress had been made in restoring power, with 16% of consumers receiving electricity and around 500 megawatts being generated.

That was a fraction of the country’s 3,300-megawatt demand on Thursday, the day before the grid collapsed and the government declared an “energy emergency” following weeks of extended outages.

The power grid failed in a chain reaction Friday due to the unexpected shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the biggest of the island’s eight decrepit coal-fired power plants, according to the head of electricity supply at the Energy Ministry, Lazaro Guerra.

National Electric Utility (UNE) said it had managed to generate a minimal amount of electricity to get power plants restarted on Friday night, but by Saturday morning it was experiencing what official news outlet Cubadebate called “a new, total disconnection of the electrical grid.”

Most neighborhoods in Havana remained dark on Saturday, except for hotels and hospitals with emergency generators and the very few private homes with that kind of backup in the economically challenged nation.

“God knows when the power will come back on,” said Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic, who had to walk almost five kilometers (three miles) due to the lack of public transportation amid the blackout.

Yaima Vallares, a 28-year-old dancer, told AFP that “everything is very difficult. For almost a day we have had this blackout that makes life so hard for us.”

“I am trying to remain calm because there is too much stress over everything in this country,” she said.

The blackout followed weeks of power outages, lasting up to 20 hours a day in some provinces.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero on Thursday declared an “energy emergency,” suspending non-essential public services in order to prioritize electricity supply to homes.

Schools across the country are now closed until Monday.

“This is crazy,” Eloy Fon, an 80-year-old retiree living in central Havana, told AFP on Friday.

“It shows the fragility of our electricity system… We have no reserves, there is nothing to sustain the country, we are living day-to-day.”

Leaving Cuba

President Diaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening, during Donald Trump’s presidency, of a six-decade-long US trade embargo.

Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of its key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s — marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.

With no relief in sight, many Cubans have emigrated.

More than 700,000 entered the United States between January 2022 and August 2024, according to US officials.

While the authorities chiefly blame the US embargo, the island is also feeling the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic battering its critical tourism sector, and of economic mismanagement.

To bolster its grid, Cuba has leased seven floating power plants from Turkish companies and also added many small diesel-powered generators.

In July 2021, blackouts sparked an unprecedented outpouring of public anger.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting, “We are hungry” and “Freedom!” in a rare challenge to the government.

One person was killed and dozens were injured in the protests. According to the Mexico-based human rights organization Justicia 11J, 600 people detained during the unrest remain in prison.

In 2022, the island also suffered months of daily hours-long power outages, capped by a nationwide blackout caused by Hurricane Ian.