Areas and institutions of Boyeros, La Lisa, Playa, and Plaza de la Revolución, among the municipalities of the capital most affected by Hurricane Rafael, were visited this Saturday afternoon by the President of the National Defense Council, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, who between Thursday, Friday and Saturday has visited, again and again, areas of Artemisa, Mayabeque and Havana, the provinces severely hit by the event.
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic was able to verify the rapid sanitation of the city, where about 72 hours after the passage of the cyclone, hour after hour, the vestiges of the destruction were disappearing.
And that has been thanks to the protagonism of the people, of the combatants of the FAR and the Minint, of labor collectives, of brigades of the UJC, the FEU, the FEEM..., to which the Head of State testified in declarations, halfway through the trip, to the Havana correspondent of the multi-platform Telesur.
The President visited the Eduardo García Delgado Pre-University in Boyeros. The center suffered some damage to the building structure, but above all to the trees, which has forced a huge restoration effort with the participation of local institutions, the teaching staff, students, and their families.
During the tour, the President of the Republic was accompanied by the member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Party, Roberto Morales Ojeda; the member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee José Ramón Monteagudo Ruiz; the Vice Prime Minister Inés María Chapman Waugh; and the main authorities of Havana, the first secretary of the provincial committee of the Party, Liván Izquierdo Alonso; and the governor, Yanet Hernández Pérez.
Chapman Waugh, and the main authorities of Havana, the first secretary of the provincial committee of the Party, Liván Izquierdo Alonso; and the governor, Yanet Hernández Pérez.
The president then went to meet the people of San Agustín, in La Lisa, to check the cleaning works in one of its areas. On one of the corners of 240th Street, he exchanged with the locals, to whom he commented that, if the people help, it will be possible to advance much faster, something in which the institutions settled in the neighborhood should give their full support.
The President had a similar exchange in the streets of Miramar, Playa, where, as in La Lisa and 17th Street in Vedado, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, he also repeatedly inquired about the restoration of electricity, the circuits that already have light and those that are missing, and the water supply, two of the main problems that must be solved promptly.
The mid-afternoon meeting in Ciudad Libertad was emotional, where Díaz-Canel met with a swarm of young people cleaning one of the most emblematic educational institutions of the city. He talked with members of the UJC National Committee, led by its first secretary, Meyvis Estévez Echevarría, members of the national leadership of the FEU and FEEM, and cadets of the José Martí Military Technical Institute.
Díaz-Canel commented to the young people that in Havana, with the sanitation effort that is being made to eliminate the traces of Hurricane Rafael and everything that was being done before in this sense, it is necessary to catch up in sanitation and never again return to the previous situation of filth, in which, regardless of the limitations of resources, social indiscipline, and disorganization were having an impact.
Statements to Telesur
In Ciudad Libertad, the Cuban President in his statements to Telesur summarized the experiences he has had since Thursday in the places affected by Hurricane Rafael in Artemisa, Havana, and Mayabeque.
It is astonishing -he said- how the traces of that mark left by the cyclone in the first moments, which gives the image of destruction, of ugliness, has been erased. And that -he explained- has a lot to do with the participation of the people, the students, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, the state centers, the government institutions, and the Party.
The President pointed out that the electricity service was one of the most affected by the hurricane, which has demanded an intense effort from the workers of the Unión Eléctrica, which has led to summoning another twenty specialized brigades from other provinces to work on the recovery of the service in Artemisa and Havana.
He recalled, by the way, the rapid recovery of the National Electroenergetic System, interrupted during the passage of the hurricane and the rehabilitation of electricity in not a few areas of the affected provinces; and now, he explained, we have to recover the water supply, which was also affected by the lack of electricity.
“In terms of sanitation, said Díaz-Canel, in general, on Monday we will be in a situation where the most visible trace of the hurricane will not be present. We will then be left with electrical damages, water damages, and damages to housing and infrastructure, which will be recovered as the materials arrive”.
When asked by the journalist when he estimated that the electricity service would be fully restored, Díaz-Canel clarified that this depends on many things, so he did not want to create false expectations.
However, he added that in the area of Artemisa, where there are major damages, we have more than ten days left, which does not mean that all of Artemisa will be off, but there is an important part that will not have service. And if the electric workers, as they are organized, do it in less time, they would be doing a tremendous heroic deed, he clarified.
Regarding the completion of the service in Havana, especially in the circuits most affected by the fall of trees on the power lines, the fall and breakage of poles, and the damage to transformers and wiring, he considered that by Monday and Tuesday at the latest almost all circuits could be supplied although it would be necessary to see other breakdowns that may exist locally.
Concerning housing and infrastructure, Díaz-Canel informed us that it has not yet been possible to count all the damages. Also, he added, there is much to recover in agriculture, especially in Artemisa and Mayabeque, which are two very productive provinces that provide food to Havana.
The broad solidarity that has been experienced these days did not go unnoticed by the Telesur journalist either. In this regard, Díaz-Canel commented that “first of all there has been solidarity among Cubans; the Cuban people have shown solidarity, just as the people have shown solidarity with Guantánamo, they have shown solidarity in this case with the affected provinces”.
Regarding international solidarity, he said: “Aid has arrived from Venezuela; today we received the ambassador of Qatar; there are several governments that have asked their ambassadors to provide them with the necessary support, and all these things are arriving. Also, the United Nations system, with the WFP and other organizations of the system here in Cuba, have already made resources available and are raising other resources”.
What message could you send to the people and the world, was the last question the correspondent asked the Cuban President; who answered:
“That we are standing, not as many people wanted to show in the international press that Cuba was in a total collapse. We are standing, we are fighting and we are going to come out of this as we have come out of others and, we are going to come out because there are the young people committed to their Revolution, to their people, there are the people and there are the Revolutionary Armed Forces: that unity that we have, which is very difficult to see in the whole world, is the reason for our victories”.