Hurricane imminent in Cuba, spends second night without electricity

A hurricane named Oscar is set to hit the island of Cuba imminently, threatening to further affect the population, which is spending its second night without electricity due to a massive blackout.

Cuba is facing its worst crisis in thirty years. For its approximately 10 million inhabitants, the arrival of this hurricane, coupled with the massive power outage that has been ongoing since Friday — which follows chronic blackouts — is adding to shortages of food, medicine and galloping inflation.

Authorities in the east of the island “are already working hard to protect the population and economic resources, given the imminence of Hurricane Oscar,” assured President Miguel Díaz-Canel in a message published Saturday evening on the social network X.

Accompanied by winds of 139 km/h, Oscar is expected to reach eastern Cuba on Sunday, where heavy rains are expected, according to the American National Hurricane Center (NHC).

In another message on X, the Cuban presidency reported the beginning of progress in restoring the electrical system.

“16% of consumers already have electricity and around 500 megawatts are being generated. The system will continue to increase its load in the coming hours,” it said.

For comparison, the country had consumed 3,300 megawatts on Thursday, the day before the total power outage linked to the shutdown of the island's main thermal power plant, located in Matanzas (west).

– “Too much stress” –

A street in Havana, plunged into darkness during a national power outage, October 19, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

On Thursday, the Cuban president announced that the island was in a situation of “energy emergency” due to difficulties in purchasing the fuel needed to power its power plants, due to the strengthening of the embargo that Washington has imposed on the island since 1962.

On Saturday night, most of Havana's neighborhoods were in the dark, except for hotels and hospitals equipped with emergency generators and a few private homes that have such equipment.

“The situation is very difficult, but I'm trying to stay calm, because there is already too much stress in this country,” Yaima Valladares, a 28-year-old dancer, told AFP.

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Isabel Rodriguez, 72, is having trouble sleeping like many of her compatriots, because she can't use fans, while the temperature on Saturday night is 27 degrees, but the humidity is very high, making it feel like 32 degrees.

The lobby of a building during a national blackout in Matanzas, Cuba, on October 18, 2024 © AFP – Antonio LEVI

President Díaz-Canel held a supervisory meeting Friday night, during which he promised that there would be no rest for state services until electricity was fully restored to the island.

“People are a little upset because the power has been out for a long time and God knows when it will be restored,” said Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic who said he walked nearly five kilometers due to the lack of transportation.

“We spend four or five hours waiting for the guagua (bus) and when it comes, it's full and doesn't stop,” he said wearily.

– “No more internet” –

“Without electricity, it's almost impossible to study,” said an 18-year-old man, who asked not to be named. “My phone has no battery, we no longer have internet, the connection has also disappeared and I can't call my loved ones because there is no coverage on the landline at home.”

Cubans play dominoes in the dark during a national power outage, October 18, 2024 in Havana © AFP – Yamil LAGE

For the past three months, Cubans have been suffering from increasingly frequent power outages, with a national energy deficit of 30%. By Thursday, that deficit had reached 50%.

In recent weeks, in several provinces, outages have lasted more than 20 hours a day.

In Cuba, electricity is produced by eight dilapidated thermoelectric power plants, some of which are broken down or undergoing maintenance, as well as by several floating power plants — which the government leases to Turkish companies — and generators.

Most of these infrastructures need fuel to operate.

The power outages were one of the triggers for the historic protests of July 11, 2021.

As of September 2022, the island had already experienced a general blackout after Hurricane Ian hit the west of the island. It took several days for electricity to be fully restored in the capital and several weeks across the island.

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