Hurricane Oscar makes landfall in Cuba amid massive power outage

HAVANA – Hurricane Oscar made landfall on the evening of October 20 in Cuba, where residents were bracing for more chaos and misery as the country grapples with a near-nationwide blackout that is in its final stages. third day.

Oscar’s arrival, after the October 18 collapse of Cuba’s largest power plant that paralyzed the entire national grid, increases pressure on a country already struggling with skyrocketing inflation and food shortages , medicines, fuel and water.

The Cuban government said power would be restored to the majority of the country by the evening of October 21.

The Category 1 storm made landfall in eastern Cuba on Oct. 20 at 5:50 p.m. local time, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Oscar had maximum sustained winds near 80 mph, the NHC said, and the storm was moving westward at 7 mph.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on October 19 that authorities in the east of the island were “working hard to protect the population and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”

Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters on October 20 that electricity would be restored to most Cubans by the night of October 21, adding that “the last customer could be connected by Tuesday.

The power grid failed in a chain reaction on October 18 due to the unexpected shutdown of the largest of the island’s eight decrepit coal-fired power plants, according to the electricity supply manager at the Ministry of Energy, Mr. Lazaro Guerra.

The national electricity company UNE said it had managed to produce a minimum amount of electricity to restart power plants on the night of October 18, but by the morning of October 19 it was suffering what official media Cubadebate called “a new total disconnection from the electricity grid”. »

Most areas of Havana remain dark, except for hotels and hospitals with backup generators and the very few private homes with backup systems.

“God knows when the power will come back,” said Mr. Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic, who had to walk nearly 5 km due to the lack of public transportation due to the power outage.

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

On October 17, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero declared an “energy emergency,” suspending non-essential public services to prioritize the supply of electricity to homes.

President Diaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the strengthening, under President Donald Trump, of the US trade embargo in force for six decades.

Cuba is in the grip 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.