Hurricane Rafael, upgraded to Category 3, set to hit Cuba

Hurricane Rafael was survey in category 3 at the time when he is getting ready to hit the western coast of Cuba, already hit two weeks ago by a giant power outage and the passage of Oscar.

“Rafael is becoming a Category 3 hurricane as it approaches the coast of western Cuba,” the U.S. Hurricane Center said ( NHC) on X.

The hurricane is expected to cause “life-threatening submersion, damaging winds (…) and flash flooding” in this area of ​​the country, added the American agency.

“Severe hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 185 km/h”, which makes it a category 3 hurricane out of 5 according to the Saffir-Simpson scale, “still able to strengthen before making landfall in the afternoon” on Wednesday, the Cuban Meteorological Institute (Insmet) confirmed on the same social network.

Residents leave the village of Guanimar in Cuba's Artemisa province as Hurricane Rafael approaches on November 5, 2024 © AFP – YAMIL LAGE

At 1:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT), the hurricane was 165 km south of Havana and moving at 22 km/h, according to the NHC.

Faced with this new threat, the Cuban authorities have increased calls for vigilance and preventive measures “to protect the population and safeguard material resources”.

“We are in constant communication with the territories that will feel the effects of Hurricane Rafael the most”, declared Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on X on Wednesday. “Courage Cuba!”, he declared.

Nine provinces (out of the country's fifteen), located in the west and centre of the island, including Havana, have been placed on “cyclone alert”.

A car passes in front of a gas station dismantled as Hurricane Rafael approaches, in Havana, Cuba, November 5, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

In addition, the “National Defense Council”, made up of military personnel, was activated on Tuesday to respond to the meteorological emergency.

In Havana, home to two million people, the vast majority of whom had deserted the streets on Wednesday where shops, offices and schools were closed, the rain and gusts of wind became more intense as the day went on, AFP noted.

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In the village of Alquizar, located about fifty km southwest of the capital, Liset Herrera, 57, told AFP on Tuesday that she feared that after Rafael passes, “nothing will remain” of her village.

“People, even if they are not evacuated, are leaving (of their own accord) because it is very difficult,” lamented Marisol Valle, a 63-year-old farmer in the village coastal Ganimar, a few kilometers further south.

– Sheltering –

Shelter operations have been carried out in various provinces of the country concerning several tens of thousands of Cubans, particularly in the west and center of the country.

Residents of Havana queue at a bakery before the arrival of Hurricane Rafael, November 6, 2024 © AFP – YAMIL LAGE

Around 13,000 people have been placed under protection in the central province of Villa Clara, according to the official press, which nevertheless specified that the alert had been lifted in the province of Guantanamo (east), the hardest hit by Hurricane Oscar.

The latter, a category 1 hurricane, struck the east of the island on October 20 before transforming into a tropical storm. Severe flooding surprised the inhabitants of two localities of Guantanamo, San Antonio del Sur and Imias, where eight people died.

Oscar came as the island was suffering a general blackout. For four days, Cuba's 10 million people were without power due to a massive blackout that began on October 18 following fuel shortages and a breakdown at the country's main power plant.

On Wednesday, the availability of electricity “will depend a lot on the effects of the hurricane,” Lazaro Guerra, director of electricity at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, told Cuban television.

Last week, Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy acknowledged that the situation with the electricity system remained “tense” on the island, while power outages have continued chronically throughout the country since then.

Fishermen shelter their boat in Havana, before the arrival of Hurricane Rafael, Cuba, November 5, 2024 © AFP – ADALBERTO ROQUE

In September 2022, the island had already experienced a widespread power outage after the passage of powerful Hurricane Ian which had struck the west of the island.

Rafael is expected to weaken over Cuba, but will still be a hurricane as it enters the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, according to the NHC.

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