Cuba & Costa Rica Blog
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Written by Cuba and Costa Rica expert Christopher P. Baker, this blog will update readers on life in these two diverse and exciting countries.
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New Orleans mayor raises storm with comments on Cuba's hurricane preparedness
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Freshly returned last Thursday after a six-day fact-finding mission to Cuba, New Orleans' controversial mayor Ray Nagin stirred up a hornet's nest when he praised Cuba's hurricane preparedness, which is regarded as the best in the world. Nagin was accompanied by 15 city and state officials, including police, fire and port agencies,
"The president and the governor were going back and forth," said Nagin, referring to Hurricane Katrina. "In Cuba you don't have that problem. The government says, 'This is what we're doing, these are the resources we are going to deploy, ' and it pretty much happens."
Nagin's comments were right on the button, as exemplified by the fact that only seven Cubans died when three massive hurricanes—Gustav, Ike and Paloma—slammed the island in quick succession last year. Mass evacuations ensured that literally millions of people were swiftly moved out of the danger zones ahead of the hurricanes' arrival.
Alas, the comment raised a firestorm of knee-jerk protest by anti-Castroite partisans who fail to comprehend that Cuba's superb hurricane preparedness is the result of a highly efficient organization at a local community level that, as regards hurricanes, genuinely strives to account for the safety of all Cuban citizens.
Compare that to the pathetic and ineffectual U.S. government response to Hurricane Katrina, which inundated New Orleans in 2005 and left more than 1,800 people dead. End of subject.
Travelers to Cuba can take heart in the knowledge that an exemplary civil defense network comes into play to protect tourists when a hurricane threatens or strikes. Every available bus is put to work to transfer tourists inland or to safer zones. And following the devastation of 2008, which caused an estimated $9.3 billion in damage, scarce resources were channeled into repairing damaged hotels and tourist infrastructure as speedily as possible. (Most damage was in the provinces of Holguín, Camagüey, and Pinar del Río.)
Meanwhile, Nagin has been lobbying for U.S. and Cuban authorities to allow special charter flights between New Orleans and Havana.
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Right for once?
Posted by lmartone on October 26, 2009 at 6:10 pm
As a rule, I'm not a big fan of Nagin's. His incompetence at least contributed to the Katrina debacle in my hometown, but on this point, he might be right. I wonder how Katrina would've been handled in Cuba. No matter what, though, my family still would've lost their homes - and my mom's neighbor still would've died. Unless "mandatory evacuation" in Cuba actually means something.