{"id":7707,"date":"2022-10-03T20:20:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T20:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/?p=7707"},"modified":"2022-10-03T20:20:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T20:20:30","slug":"pinar-del-rio-six-hours-that-changed-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/pinar-del-rio-six-hours-that-changed-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinar del R\u00edo: Six hours that changed everything"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t want to write. We were not there when Ian attacked the province of Pinar del R\u00edo with winds of more than 200 kilometers per hour; that land that saw us born and from which we can never let go. We didn\u2019t want to write but it is a journalistic duty to tell stories and bring a pinch of hope to the last person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Wednesday, from car to car, from stretch to stretch, we traveled about a hundred and fifty kilometers and reached Pinar del R\u00edo. Destruction, pain in people\u2019s faces, fallen trees, houses without roofs, others on the ground. A bleak scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After talking with the first interviewee, the one who only had a roof fall off a terrace and her chest tightened when she assured us that she was not compared to others who had lost everything, there, just at that moment, something in us changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t want to write but she had us travel the province, go to the most intricate places, feel the stories, and try to tell them in the most reliable way possible. Without electricity or water, staying to sleep wherever the night took us, working mornings and afternoons in the provincial telecentre, but knowing that that was where we should be, and that despite everything, when we returned to Havana we had a roof over our heads, and that thousands in that land of good people had lost absolutely everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn\u2019t want to write, but we did. There go the stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking along a road that is difficult to access, you reach \u201cLa Loma de la Candela\u201d, the popular name of the first street at the end of the Diez de Octubre district, in the city of Pinar del R\u00edo. Cars cannot pass through the area, it is impossible, and the road is in terrible condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the surroundings of the highway, there are simple houses, most of them made of wood, whose owners live as a family and that is how they passed Hurricane Ian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopefully, they say that the survey of the damages has already been done and that the area is included in a project that contemplates the total repair of the streets, the houses that are a few meters from them, and public lighting. \u201cPerhaps with Ian, the process will be accelerated,\u201d some say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***
Testimonies from Loma de la Candela<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"
Yusniel Norbel Vald\u00e9s. Photo: Cubadebate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThe three of us spent the cyclone together in the shop window\u201d
On the night of September 27, Yadielis Madera and Yusniel Norbel Vald\u00e9s sent their children Tania and Yudiel Alejandro to Yusniel\u2019s mother\u2019s house. \u201cBecause it is stronger. My wife and I stayed here to secure the roof,\u201d says Yusniel, a 39-year-old turnboy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of the roof, they put some sacks, but as soon as the wind began to blow strongly, the first fiber of the front of the portal was lifted. And that\u2019s where the never-ending battle began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI tried to hang on to pull it out, but I couldn\u2019t and they all went away. We had to get inside the window to get past the cyclone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 3:30 in the morning, from their temporary shelter, they felt their door being pushed. \u201cIt was Reinier P\u00e9rez, one of the neighbors, asking for help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reinier had fled from his wooden house. He was afraid that a tree would fall on the house. He went into the window with Yadielis and Yusniel. They had a bad time together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yadielis and Yusniel say that some windows became loose, and others fell. The walls behind the kitchen cracked, the ones in the corners. Everything got wet: the mattress, the children\u2019s notebooks, the equipment. During these days they continue giving things sun, \u201clet\u2019s see if we can recover them\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yadielis remembers that they spent the night watching how the zincs flew through the air, \u201cwith the fear that instead of doing it from the outside, they would go inside and catch us. It was the saddest night of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her husband insists that he knows that everyone is affected, \u201cbut we have two small children and the roof gets completely wet. I had to look for the fibers in the streams and put them patched up, full of holes, to see if one day they help me with the fibers or two bags of cement. What the State can\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"
Reinier, Yadielis and Yusniel. Photo: Cubadebate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI had to run away because otherwise, the house would fall on top of me\u201d
With Reinier, we also talked. When I left desperately around 3:30 a.m. because some segments had already fallen from the bush next to my house, I called Yusniel and the three of us went inside the shop window to wait for the thing to finish. As soon as I left, the bush fell on my house. If I managed to stay in there, I wouldn\u2019t be doing the story right now\u201d, he expresses with determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Reinier, who graduated in Physical Education 22 years ago, Ian\u2019s attacks broke the television, the refrigerator, the ceiling lamps\u2026 The mattresses were soaked in water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere is my little house,\u201d he says and points to what was left of his house. \u201cThis is what I have been able to achieve on my own, and now I have backed off with the hurricane. What is needed for the Revolution to help me make a \u2018quimbito\u2019, as the good Cuban says. I ask for nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(By\u00a0Ang\u00e9lica Arce Montero,\u00a0Thal\u00eda Fuentes Puebla\/ Cubadebate)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Wednesday, from car to car, from stretch to stretch, we traveled about a hundred and fifty kilometers and reached Pinar del R\u00edo. Destruction, pain in people\u2019s faces, fallen trees, houses without roofs, others on the ground. A bleak scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101011,"featured_media":7708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cuba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7667,"url":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/first-news-after-hurricane-ian-sweeps-western-cuba\/","url_meta":{"origin":7707,"position":0},"title":"First News after Hurricane Ian Sweeps Western Cuba","author":"Editorial Team","date":"September 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"President Miguel Diaz Canel in Pinar Del Rio this morning. photo: Estudios Revoluci\u00f3n Update: We sent this out last night and since then the entire country of Cuba is without electricity after a failure in the national grid. 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