Hurricane Oscar slammed landfall on Sunday evening in Cuba, where inhabitants were bracing for further chaos and misery as the island dealt with a nearly national power outage on its third day.
The arrival of Oscar, coming after Cuba’s greatest power plant collapsed late Friday, crippling the whole national system, adds to the country’s already high inflation and food, medication, gasoline, and water shortages.
Cuba’s government said power would be restored to the majority of the country by Monday evening, with President Miguel Diaz-Canel warning that public conflicts would not be tolerated during the outage.
Oscar, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall in eastern Cuba at 5:50 p.m. (2150 GMT) on Sunday, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
According to the NHC, the storm had maximum sustained winds exceeding 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour and was heading west at seven miles per hour.
Waves up to 13 feet (four meters) high crashed against the seafront in Baracoa. House roofs and walls were destroyed, while electrical lines and trees were felled, according to state television.
President Diaz-Canel said on Saturday that officials in the island’s east were “working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar.”
Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters that electrical power would be restored to most Cubans by Monday night, adding that “the last customer may receive service by Tuesday.”
According to Lazaro Guerra, head of electrical supply at the energy ministry, the power grid failed in a chain reaction Friday as a result of the abrupt shutdown of the island’s largest of eight outdated coal-fired power plants.
National electric provider UNE said it was able to produce a small quantity of electricity by reactivating power plants on Friday night, but by Saturday morning, it was experiencing what official news source Cubadebate called “a new, total disconnection of the electrical grid.”
Most Havana districts remain black, except hotels and hospitals equipped with generators for emergencies and a small number of private homes with backup systems.
“God knows when the power will come back on,” said Rafael Carrillo, a 41-year-old mechanic forced to walk nearly five kilometers owing to a shortage of public transportation during the blackout.
The blackout followed weeks of power disruptions, which lasted up to 20 hours a day in some provinces.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero declared a “energy emergency,” suspending non-essential governmental functions in order to prioritize domestic electrical supplies.
On Sunday, President Diaz-Canel warned that the government would “severely” punish anyone who sought to “disturb public order” during the blackout.
That comment came after witnesses stated that citizens from many Havana districts took to the streets on Sunday night to vent their dissatisfaction.
President Diaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s challenges in obtaining fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening of a six-decade-long US trade blockade during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the demise of crucial partner the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, characterized by skyrocketing inflation and basic goods shortages.
To strengthen its system, Cuba leased seven floating power plants from Turkish enterprises and installed numerous small diesel-powered generators.
In July 2021, outages triggered a record-setting outburst of public outrage.