No electricity, food, or water, and now Hurricane Oscar is heading for Cuba
While Cubans wait in massive lines for propane or charcoal to cook the little food that hasn't spoiled, the regime's hotels for tourists are ablaze in light, fully airconditioned—and nearly empty.
It’s estimated that a significant portion of of Cuba’s 10 million citizens have now been without power for 36 hours, according to independent news sites on the island.
The countrywide power outage began Friday, 18 October, but enough Cubans are managing to post and giving us a frightening street-level view of the crisis. They describe using the few moments when the electricity is restored to post, or call family members, but often those numbers are offline as well. Other Cubans have taken to the dark streets to bang on pots and vent their rage at the government, knowing they are less likely to be identified in the darkness.
Cubans in Matanzas are complaining that the government is selling charcoal at 600 pesos, when just days ago it was selling the now vital cooking resource for a pittance. One commentor described how the “bosses” in charge were likely setting bags aside for themselves to resell or use—“as usual.”
In Bayamo, tension was rising in a crowd waiting for propane containers, which Cubans call balas, or bullets. The person filming comments on the scene. “Díaz Canel’s [Cuba’s appointed president] revolution is a total fuck up. Look at how the people are. . . killing themselves for a bala . . . “
Many are describing “kilometric” lines, with hundreds of people, some waiting overnight, to buy propane to cook food that is spoiling in hot refrigerators. Others report gathering wood and cooking over fires.
Independent news site 14ymedio sums the crisis up in a caption of a photo of a darkened Havana street: The authorities have lost control of the situation.
What the regime has not lost control over, according to one source in Sancti Spíritus is its military presence on the street. “The militia is running around like ants . . . they arrested a man from my barrio and his wife still hasn’t heard where he is.”
The government is blaming the energy debacle on the outage at the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the US embargo, and increased consumer demand. But Guiteras is out of service so frequently that Cubans are used to hearing it on the daily news and are unlikely to see it as the cause.
Rather than accept responsibility for the decades of deffered maintenance on the power grid, or announce a shift in resources from tourism to energy, officials are telling citizens to unplug their appliances—and to expect an increase in electricity costs.
All schools and non essential businesses have been shut down. Official news is either unavailable or unhelpful, according to the Sancti Spíritus source. “People are getting updates from people on the street, who heard it from people somewhere else.”
Angry posts across social media complain about the lack of water, food spoiling, empty bank machines—and fear. One commentor called for a radical solution: “Sell the country if you have to!”
“Who would buy this?” another weary Cuban replied.