Patapano, Sept. 27 (BNA): The first strong winds before Hurricane Ian began to hit the southern coast of Cuba late Monday as officials scrambled to evacuate residents, secure boats and seal homes amid warnings of a life-threatening storm.
The fast-growing storm is centered about 155 miles (250 km) southeast of Cabo San Antonio, in westernmost Cuba, but has made a strong jump in recent hours with maximum winds of 100 mph (155 kph), making Reuters reported that A Category 2 hurricane on a five-degree scale.
“Devastating wind damage is possible as Ian’s core moves across western Cuba,” the center said.
The storm is expected to intensify to become a Category 3 or greater hurricane and barrel north to the Florida coast, where residents stock up on supplies and fill sandbags.
The people of Patapano on the southern coast of Cuba worked with far fewer resources than they did in Florida as the storm approached, threatening the unstable fishing village of wooden and concrete houses perched a few steps from the raging sea.
“We are here to save lives, we go from house to house, we take old people and children,” said local official Slika Rosh, 43, on a bus that was carrying residents to higher ground.
The storm was set to head north across the island as it advanced into the Gulf of Mexico, but forecasts put its course west of the Cuban capital, Havana, where a direct hit could cause catastrophic damage to the city’s aging infrastructure.
Cuba is already suffering from an economic crisis that has led to long queues for food, fuel and medicine, as well as regular power outages across the country. Most grocery store shelves have been largely empty for months, complicating preparations for the storm.
“I’m buying bread now because later I won’t be able to leave my house,” said Guillermo Gomez, a 79-year-old Havana resident, as he waited in a line that spanned several blocks for a few pieces of bread. “The water will reach my knees.”
And on Malecón Street on the capital’s waterfront, some residents climbed windows. Others, lacking panels, taped them to prevent them from shattering, while others removed the glass altogether.
Juan Ruiz, the keeper of a café overlooking the Florida Straits, said the company had stripped all of its merchandise and equipment the night before, preferring to work with the sea rather than fight it.
“We’ve been preparing since Saturday,” Ruiz said as the winds began to raise white peaks over the water. “The sea is always overflowing here.”
The Cuban government canceled interprovincial train and bus services across the western half of the island before the storm. Officials said they were also monitoring aging levees, many of which were already nearing completion before the storm.
The storm appears to be about to cut a swath across the tobacco-growing province of Pinar del Rio, a sparsely populated area of the island primarily devoted to agriculture and fishing.
Officials in Pinar del Rio said they would evacuate 24,000 people from the province before the hurricane.
Officials said fertilizer, charcoal and farm animals have been moved to safe locations, protecting infrastructure for the tobacco industry in the area.
Once Ian leaves western Cuba, meteorologists said, the storm could make landfall north of Tampa Bay as early as Friday or turn northwest toward the Panhandle in Florida.
The Biden administration declared a public health emergency for the state on Monday and said it is working with local officials to provide support.
Cuba and Florida in recent years have both experienced wetter, windier, and more intense hurricanes, which some experts attribute to climate change.
MI