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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/16/a-tale-of-two-islands/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/16/a-tale-of-two-islands/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">A Tale of Two Islands</h1>
<p class="post_meta"> <span class="post_author_intro">by</span>
<span class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/drespu/"
rel="nofollow">Vijay Prashad - October 16, 2017</a></span>
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<p>Hurricanes develop in the Atlantic Ocean and move
across the cold water towards the warmer sea of the
Caribbean. All that energy journeys, picking up steam,
driving forward with immense force. This September,
hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose, Katia and Maria thrust
themselves into the Caribbean and devastated many of its
islands as well as the coastline of the United States
and Central America. One meteorologist, Phil Klotzbach
of Colorado State University, suggested that this
September was the most deadly hurricane month since
1893.</p>
<p>Changes in the world’s climate, scientists suggest,
have made these Atlantic cyclones much more powerful
than before. Warming waters increases the ability of the
storms to draw in water vapour and to engorge themselves
with more energy. These devastatingly formidable storms
then drag the rising waters to produce dangerous storm
surges that beat against coastlines and produce
large-scale flooding.</p>
<p>Hurricane Irma, which arrived in the Caribbean Sea in
early September, destroyed many of the small islands
such as Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda and St. Martin. Prime
Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda said that
Barbuda, which housed short of 2,000 people, had become
“barely habitable”. The government called for an
evacuation of the island, which now has a population of
zero. It has been abandoned. This country in the Lesser
Antilles or the Leeward Islands faces the brunt of
hurricanes since it is in the mouth of the Caribbean.
Daniel Gibbs of the government of St. Martin, a French
territory also in the Lesser Antilles, said that 95 per
cent of the island had been destroyed. “It is an
enormous catastrophe,” said Gibbs, who represents the
island in the French parliament.</p>
<p><strong>Cuba and Irma</strong></p>
<p>Irma, a Category 5 hurricane—the strongest
possible—struck Cuba with immense force in early
September. The storm came fast and hard. The devastation
was severe. In the small town of Moscu in the
municipality of Esmeralda (Camaguey province), only 10
of its 289 houses remained standing. The Cuban
journalist Yaditza del Sol Gonzalez reported for <em>Granma</em> that
near Jiguey beach “the sea took it all”. The storm surge
overcame the Malecon sea wall in Havana, sending water
into its streets with ferocity. Havana, with its old
buildings, suffered from flooding and power cuts. Ten
people died, the majority of them in Havana. Cuba’s
President Raul Castro took to the airwaves, calling for
unity of the nation and for reconstruction of the
island. “This is not the time to mourn,” Castro said,
“but to build what the winds of Irma attempted to
destroy.”</p>
<p>By all indications, the death toll in Cuba was
remarkably low as was the devastation to the island’s
infrastructure. Certainly, homes in the old part of
Havana are brittle and parts of the infrastructure are
in severe need of modernisation. But the island’s
preparation for the hurricane and the general community
spirit that prevails there saved it from total
devastation. Tens of thousands of people had been
evacuated from Havana in anticipation of the storm, and
over a million people from across the island went into
shelters. One such shelter was at the Karl Marx
Vocational Pre-University in Matanzas, where volunteers
gathered food, water and medical supplies for the
evacuees.</p>
<p>The country’s pharmaceutical industry halted production
of medicines a week before the storm in order to build
up the stock of hydration salts, which were then
distributed across the island. Electricity and gas
supplies were cut before the storm came to the island,
and measures were taken to protect the lines and
transformers from the impact of the winds and the
flooding. The government made sure to dispatch flour to
state bakeries, which worked overtime to produce stocks
of bread for the aftermath of the storm. Agricultural
workers from Santiago de Cuba harvested their crops
before they ripened in the field and distributed the
produce.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, brigades and defence councils began to
conduct search-and-rescue operations across the areas
most affected by the hurricane. “The most important task
is, and will be, the preservation of life,” said Dr Jose
Luis Aparicio Suarez, a coordinator of one of the
medical brigades. “The recovery will come later,
gradually. Health and life are the absolute priorities.”</p>
<p>But rebuilding was not left to later. Radio Cadena
Agramonte in Camaguey reported during the storm that
electric workers had begun to restore power in the area.
Within weeks, such workers restored the electric grid,
which is not anyway in the best shape. The electric
providers reported that the storm destroyed two
high-tension pylons, downed 3,616 poles and 2,176
kilometres of power lines, and damaged 1,379
transformers and several substations. Today, almost the
entire island has electrical power.</p>
<p>Just before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba, U.S. President
Donald Trump renewed the embargo of the island. This
means that Cuba will be denied crucial supplies needed
for reconstruction, including financial assistance from
multilateral organisations. Cuba’s finances cannot
manage the reconstruction, but nonetheless the
government has announced that its state budget will
finance 50 per cent of the construction materials needed
for the 158,554 homes that have been affected by the
storm. Also, the government has said it will provide a
50 per cent discount on damaged household goods. For
those who have had all their goods destroyed, the
government has said it will cover 100 per cent of their
expenses.</p>
<p><strong>Puerto Rico and Maria</strong></p>
<p>Hurricane Irma did not directly strike the U.S.
territory of Puerto Rico, but it did knock out its power
grid. More than a million customers lost access to power
and half of the island’s hospitals went offline. This
happened without any rainfall on the island and without
a direct hit from Irma. Last July, the government-owned
power company declared bankruptcy when it could no
longer service its debt of $9 billion. There was no
money to protect the grid, nor was there money to
hastily get it back on its feet. Irma’s strike on Puerto
Rico was a warning of what was to come.</p>
<p>Ten days later, with the power grid still in distress,
Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, struck Puerto Rico.
Power went out across the island. Drinking water was no
longer available and fuel vanished. The 3.4 million U.S.
citizens of the island found themselves stranded in an
apocalyptic nightmare. The official death toll was given
as 16, although the Centre for Investigative Journalism
(School of Law at the Interamerican University of Puerto
Rico) says that there are already dozens of confirmed
deaths, with the toll likely to rise to the hundreds. As
hospitals are unable to function, the infirm are under
danger of death. Dialysis has been halted; oxygen is not
available. The Demographic Registry that certifies
deaths has no power. It cannot do its work.</p>
<p>While Cuban journalists and brigades fanned Cuba to
provide information to the authorities about destruction
and reconstruction, Puerto Rico went dark.
Communications collapsed and information about the
damage was not easily available. While in Cuba the
authorities tried to get exact information of the damage
done to each home, in Puerto Rico the numbers thrown
about were the price tag for recovery—between $40
billion and $85 billion is the estimated insurance
claims that will likely be triggered by the devastation.
It says a great deal about the different approaches to
disaster: one makes sure each person is tended to and
the other worries about the cost of the recovery.</p>
<p>Power company officials said it would take at least
four, if not six, months for the power to be fully
restored to Puerto Rico. This is on territory that is
under U.S. government control, although according to a
poll only 54 per cent of Americans know that Puerto
Ricans are U.S. citizens. Recovery has been glacially
slow. In Aguadilla, thousands of desperate people were
given four bottles of water and four snacks. They are
starving and frustrated. The price of water has
skyrocketed from $2.99 to $10 in many parts of the
island. Carmen Yulin Cruz, the Mayor of the capital, San
Juan, said: “I’m begging, begging anyone that can hear
us to save us from dying. If anybody out there is
listening to us, we are dying and you are killing us
with the inefficiency.”</p>
<p>Trump celebrated the “incredible” job his government
had done. “The loss of life—it’s always tragic—but it’s
been incredible, the results that we’ve had with respect
to loss of life,” he said. “People can’t believe how
successful that has been, relatively speaking.” He
waived the Jones Act, which prevents ships from coming
directly into Puerto Rico without going to a U.S.
mainland port. But this will not be enough. Cuba has
even offered to send its personnel to the island, but
the Trump administration has not acknowledged the
request.</p>
<p>Here is a tale of two islands, one a poor socialist
state with infrastructure in grave need of modernisation
and the other a territory of one of the richest
countries in the world. One has slowly emerged out of
the chaos caused by a hurricane’s wrath, while the other
cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.</p>
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<p class="author_description"> <em><strong>Vijay Prashad’s</strong>
most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of Indian
Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015).</em> </p>
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