With the presence of Army Corps General Ramón Espinosa Martín, at the head of the recovery actions in the Pinar del Río province, the member of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Félix Duarte, and Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca , the Provincial Defense Council met this Saturday, led by its president Yamilé Ramos Cordero.
According to a report by Tele Pinar, the meeting reviewed the main actions carried out in Vueltabajo to recover —in the shortest time possible— the damage caused by Hurricane Ian.
Living place:
63,000 forms of needs to account for losses are distributed in the province, 1,619 are ready and 62 of them belong to families who are in evacuation centers.
Families who are evacuated will be prioritized and help will begin with those most affected.
Education:
The school year should start next Tuesday gradually according to the possibilities of each municipality. Several of the educational centers serve as shelters for the victims.
Energy:
3.5% (7,546) of customers in Pinar del Río have electricity service and that figure should double by tomorrow. In Los Palacios a lot of progress has been made.
In 15 to 20 days, the bulk of the electrical service in Pinar del Río should be restored.
There are eight water wells that have electric service.
Priority will be given to restoring electrical service to water wells.
Water supply:
In Los Palacios, water pumping was interrupted due to lack of fuel at the three key points.
Work is being done in the municipality of Pinar del Río to restore the pumping of water in all its wells.
In La Palma (head municipality) the generator set that guarantees electricity for pumping water burned down, but solutions are already being sought.
For Guane, a generator was brought to mount it and guarantee the pumping of water.
21 large-capacity plastic tanks are installed in the buildings of the Hermanos Cruz neighborhood.
Evacuation centers:
The living conditions of the evacuees have been improved in terms of food and comfort.
At night a group of beds, bunk beds, destined for these centers will arrive in the province.
Dissatisfactions: Little presence of culture personnel and INDER in the evacuation centers.
Basic basket and food:
A group of products from the basic basket will be increased (soaps, detergent, toothpaste)
Totally free donation modules will soon arrive in the province (grains, oil, canned products)
Pregnant women and vulnerable cases will benefit. In the case of the vulnerable, they will receive double products (per vulnerable case and for the family nucleus).
Several tons of potatoes will be distributed throughout the province, starting with the municipality of Pinar del Río, then La Palma, Viñales and so on to all the municipalities.
The biscuit factory is producing 24 hours a day so that in cases where the bread cannot be produced, it can be replaced by it.
Food tablets have been created for sale to the population.
The CDP also evaluated the situation of water supply, the delivery of the basic basket and other resources that reach the province:
According to Francisco Ismael Valdés Chirino, delegate of Hydraulic Resources in Pinar del Río:
The municipal capitals of Guane and La Palma are the most critical of the water supply due to problems with the generator sets.
There are already 21 tanks of 30 with a capacity of 1,500 liters on the multi-family buildings of the Hermanos Cruz neighborhood.
More than 1,000 200-liter plastic tanks were sent to the municipalities.
Tapia Fonseca pointed out that inertia is still present in some teams when making decisions to speed up. In the case of the distribution of food and supplies, it was reported that:
A toilet soap per consumer and half a laundry soap, a liter of detergent and a turn of toothpaste per nucleus will be distributed.
A donation after day six, of 229 tons of grain at a rate of 1kg per nucleus and double to vulnerable cases.
21,700 liters of oil will be received at the rate of one liter per nucleus.
Two cans of sardines per core. In the case of pregnant women from the municipal seat, they benefit from double delivery.
An additional three pounds of rice per kernel and corned beef will be provided.
1,100 tons of potatoes are about to arrive in the territory. The sale will start in the head municipality starting tomorrow. San Luis and San Juan will be prioritized later.
There is flour coating for making cookies
Prepared food is sold in 141 units in the province at affordable prices.
Tapia Fonseca indicated speeding up the distribution of coal since only 10 tons have been sold to the population of more than 100 who have been delivered.
San Juan y Martínez: Vulnerable families must be a priority
Likewise, the recovery actions in the Municipal Defense Council of San Juan y Martínez were checked. This territory has four points to receive construction materials and with the possibility of continuing to expand.
It transpired in the meeting that they began to lift the damages, however, they are not advancing at the required pace. Tapia Fonseca was critical in reasoning on this point. Vulnerable families have to be a priority at this point, he urges to collect debris to identify the most affected. It is time to act, he said.
Odalis Hernández, head of the water subgroup, explained:
The ten popular councils of the municipality already receive water by pipe and through the distribution network. Today aqueduct is responsible for 28% of supply, the rest is done by the tobacco company.
Not in all cases the population has received the service, hence the supply is reinforced with the ten pipes that are available for distribution.
Today a strategy is being carried out to reach 30 multi-family buildings, in addition to resolving the situation with the 21 tanks affected during Ian’s passage.
The deputy prime minister directed linking the commercial pipes for the distribution of water and also using the existing ones in the productive structures to supply the largest number of people in this municipality with around 43 thousand inhabitants. “True municipal autonomy must be put to work.”
Espinosa Martín reasoned about the importance of linking all the organizations in the recovery. The people must also do and help the soldiers and groups specialized in the collection of waste. We cannot sit idly by, we have to join in, this task belongs to everyone. Here there are six trucks, four lifters and chainsaws.
In the case of food distribution, all work centers with conditions to carry out this task are added to the cooking and sale. Yesterday, 8,000 thousand meals were sold. Already today the sale and distribution of milk to customers who consume this food will begin. The sale of cookies has begun, although insufficient, it is an incentive at this time when most of the infrastructure for the production of bread was rendered useless. In this case, work is carried out in two uninterrupted daily shifts.
Distribution of the basic food basket is starting – albeit slowly – due to workforce limitations, which is why it is a priority to strengthen human resources and speed up this important issue, as Ramos Cordero directed.
Here the largest number of damages is associated with tobacco houses and the housing fund of the municipality.
More than 100,000 homes were affected in Pinar del Río by Hurricane Ian
Photo: Tele Pinar.
More than 100,000 homes in Pinar del Río were affected, in one way or another, by Hurricane Ian, a category 3 phenomenon on the Saffir-Simpson scale (out of a total of five) that left a mark of destruction in the province .
According to Andrés Marín, Provincial Director of Housing, this figure represents about 60% of the housing fund and the main damage is found in the roofs, taking into account the high percentage of existing light roofs in the western territory.
Ian’s strong winds were felt strongly in Vueltabajo, with reports of significant gusts, the highest of 218 kilometers per hour in the municipality of San Juan y Martínez.
Today there are 103 paperwork offices – one in each defense zone – in order to expedite surveys of damages, finish quantifying them and bring resources closer to the victims, the official said.
Vueltabajo presents a complex situation since it is one of the provinces with the largest number of houses pending construction from tropical cyclones in previous years, more than 6,000. He assured that among the strategies in Pinar del Río is now to promote local production construction materials, especially for the manufacture of tanks for storing water.
Housing constitutes one of the fundamental effects caused by the hurricane, in addition to agriculture and electrical and telephone services. In a recent recovery review meeting, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, insisted on urgently working on the issue of housing in Pinar del Río due to the magnitude of the damage and the number of unrecovered dwellings from past events.
I propose that we do everything we can do without going through the phase of temporary facilities, because there are people who have had up to five cyclones in temporary facilities and do not have a strong home. These temporary facilities – he said – are the first that later fall with the winds, highlights the national press.
Likewise, René Mesa Villafaña, Minister of Construction, referred to the shipment to the province from various parts of the country of trucks loaded with cement, in bulk and in bags; tiles of different types; wood, wire rod, nails, among other materials to undertake the reconstruction in the shortest possible time.
(With information from Tele Pinar and Guerrillero)