Gaspar, El Lugareño: playa Santa Lucía & Ike (Testimonio y fotos from Canada)

--------------------------------------------------

Agradezco a una amiga canadiense el envío de esta colaboración (texto y fotos)
para los lectores de el Blog Gaspar, El Lugareño

-------------------------------------------------

Hotel Mayanabo

--------------------------

I was staying at my boyfriend’s house in Coco beach (7kms away from the tourist strip in Santa Lucia) when I got a phone call from my father to rent a car and buy as much water and canned goods as possible as a strong hurricane called Ike was heading our way and set to reach Santa Lucia in three days time. I was quite alarmed but figured that if it was as serious as he said, we would hear about it on the local news. Locals were not tremendously concerned. In the past, the area of Santa Lucia has always been lucky and avoided any serious damage from hurricanes.

Two evenings before the storm hit, it was as if it were any other day. Neighbors chatting, everyone watching the novela. At two o’oclock that morning, the buses came to evacuate those who had nowhere else to go to the school in nearby Las Ochentas. Families who could afford to, hired trucks to come and take away all of there belongings to be moved to a house further away from the ocean.

The next morning, anyone who remained in the village, were visited by the president of the CDR and the police advising them to leave. My boyfriend’s family and I prepared their house as well as possible, boarding windows, tying down roof tiles. We left around five o’clock that night and it was eerily calm. The weather was beautiful, as if it were any other day at the beach. It was an odd feeling evacuating that afternoon, as if we were going on a road trip, as we have done so many times before. The only difference is that we took one last look at the little fishing village known to locals as La Boca and knew that it would not be the same when we returned. Luckily, a friend of the family with a sturdy house in Camaguey, offered us a place to stay during the storm. That night we watched television and saw the five story waves that crashed against the apartment buildings in Baracoa.

We could only pray that the hurricane would veer off its path that put La Boca right in the worst of the storm. We went to bed as normal. I slept well until five o’clock when I was awoken by the screams of the neighbors and the sound of pieces of metal blown off the rooftops, slamming against the windows. After the worst of the storm had passed, my suegro was anxious to get back to the beach, fearing that people might take advantage of other’s misfortune and try and rob the houses of the evacuees.

It was hard to get out of Camaguey, as every street we turned down had fallen trees or electrical wires. On the major road back to the beach, we were astonished to see the damage Ike had done. Electrical posts lying on the ground, rivers overflowing, trees uprooted.

When we hit Santa Lucia, the first thing we saw was the community of La Fin on the east side of Santa Lucia. Several homes there had been completely demolished and the roofs torn of the majority of the others. It was hard to drive down the main strip of Santa Lucia. At times, you had to guess where the road was because of the huge amount of water. The Rumbos was badly damaged; there was a palm tree on the roof on one of the trailers at the Rapido, as well as the metal roof being completely knocked on its side. There was a lake where the road to the apartments at Tararaco once was, and a river where the road to the La Boca once was. We had to take the alternative route, which surprisingly was not that affected by the storm. We were the first to return to the village.

A few men had decided to weather the storm in their homes, and said the storm was so terrifying they thought it would be the last nights of their lives. Luckily, my boyfriend’s house has a cement roof and only had very minimal damage. As for the other houses in La Boca, I would estimate around 75% were either completely destroyed or left with out a roof.

The next day, other locals began trickling in to see what was left of their homes. Despite the gravity of their reality, I was quite surprised to see that everyone’s attitude was quite positive and the main feeling was one of optimism. Some even were calling themselves lucky in comparison to their fellow countrymen in Pinar del Rio, which had been hit only ten days prior with another storm. The area is still without electricity, telephones, or water and the majority of the people having been fishing in order to eat.

I was lucky enough to get on the final flight out of Camaguey to Toronto, as my parents were worried sick about me. It was quite an experience, to be able to experience Ike first hand.

-------------------------------------------