The country’s entire power network collapsed, the state-run operator UNE said, plunging the nation’s 10 million people into darkness — the second full blackout on the island in the last month — with many areas still unconnected. More than 283,000 people were evacuated, 98,300 from the capital, authorities said.
The capital Havana, with 2 million people living in densely packed and largely old buildings, is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. Desperate locals made their way to hotels with their own generators in search of scarce power.
“It is the second time that we have to live through all that has happened: the weather and the problems with the energy grid of the country,” local resident Mario de la Rosa Negrin told the Associated Press. “The hotel offered, in solidarity, the power from their power plants to the neighbors so that people could charge their mobile phones and their lamps.”
Rafael is the 17th named storm of the hurricane season. It is only the sixth hurricane to be recorded in the Gulf of Mexico in November and the third to be rated Category 2 or higher. The others were Ida in 2009, a Category 2 storm, and Kate in 1985, which was Category 3.
