We must do something, even if it is quite small, a little, insignificant
This message aims to describe a little about last week. Brother Carlos is visiting his family and will return in August. Efraín, Salvador, Yoandy, José Luis from México Central and I are sharing with you what happened with Hurricane Dennis.
I do not know if you heard that Hurricane Dennis entered our bay a week ago, causing damage in our city of Cienfuegos and on a large part of the island. It was a category 4 hurricane. We have lost 60% of tourism revenue from 2004. We have also lost, up till now, 15,000 houses and 21 foreign tourist hotels (here Cubans do not have access to such hotels, even if they have enough money to pay for their stay) have suffered significant damages there have been 16 deaths and more than 400 million dollars worth of lost materials. The loss of 36 towers in the central zone has caused a breakdown in the electrical network. More than 2 million people are without water due to the lack of electricity to pump the water to their houses. There have been 120,000 houses seriously damaged as well as the 15,000 totally destroyed. Two areas of the Granna province are nearly totally without houses: Niqueo, with 83% of houses badly damaged and Pilón with 94% in ruins.
The crops of lemons, bananas, manioc, avocados, mangos and corn have been lost totally. The sugar cane and tobacco escaped the devastation, as it is not their season. 73 thousand laying birds have been killed. We are in the midst of recuperation, trying to get ourselves out of this, as the Cubans say.