TEN CUBAN HURRICANE DEATHS

{Monday, September 11th, 2017}

At least 10 Cuban Deaths!    

      Hurricane Irma devastated Cuba this past weekend, killing at least ten people. It was the first Category 5 hurricane to make a landfall hit on the island since 1924.

       Cuba's brilliant young broadcast journalist Rosy Amaro Perez is a dear friend and the mother of a beautiful little girl. She was kind enough to inform me Monday, "Thanks. My house is damaged. But we are alive. That is most important."

      This AP/Ramon Espinosa photo shows a father carrying his child in waist-deep water on a street in Havana Sunday, September 10th, 2017. On Monday President Raul Castro said, "The recovery from this huge disaster will be an immense task." 

Reuters photo. Havana, Sunday, Sept. 10th.

Havana street flooded by Irma Sunday.

ABC News photo in Caibarien, Cuba.

Photo courtesy: Jamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images.

      The above street in Havana shows chest-deep water after flooding caused by a devastating hit from Hurricane Irma. Cuba's Civil Defense Minister Luis Angel Macoreno says, "The capital should know that the flooding is going to last into next week." Cuba prides itself on its hurricane preparedness but across the island there is major damage, including 39 major buildings that collapsed in the city of Santa Clara southeast of Havana. Cuba is now suffering from Irma's relentless fierceness.

       This photo courtesy of Ernesto Alejandro/EPA shows a Cuban spending his time cleaning up in front of his home. The clean-up will take months on the island.

      Cuba's highly respected broadcast journalists kept Cubans up-to-date on Hurricane Irma. The anchors above are Lazaro Manuel Alonso and Cristina Escobar.

                                        A fallen Cuban tree; CNN's Patrick Oppmann. 

       On Saturday, September 9th -- just before Hurricane Irma fiercely assaulted Cuba -- the Jamaica Observer used the above photo to illustrate how Cuba is famed for helping its neighbors in times of trouble. The Cuban doctors above were among 750 Cuban health workers who were quickly sent to help Irma-ravaged citizens in Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts Nevis, St. Lucia, The Bahamas, Dominica, and Haiti.

     Parts of Cuba took very massive batterings from Hurricane Irma. Earlier projections that the deadly hurricane would hit Cuba with a "glancing blow off its northern shores" were wrong. The island took a direct hit. By far the best wall-to-wall coverage of the mighty hurricane has been by CNN, which is easily out-shining its competitors, especially Fox News and MSNBC. CNN has a full-time bureau in Havana led by a solid journalist, Patrick Oppmann. He was the first to report live that some houses in Cuban cities such as Caibarien were totally under water over rooftops.

    During a live report from Caibarien, CNN viewers saw Patrick Oppmann being assaulted by a sudden burst of wind and rain as Cuba was getting pounded.

      These Cubans were shown by CNN trying to salvage belongings as Hurricane Irma approached. Cubans know hurricanes but Irma was an especially violent one.

     The above graphic shows Hurricane Irma making a direct hit on Cuba. The "glancing blow" prediction turned out to be erroneous when the record-setting hurricane veered leftward to the northwest. Also notice that the western tip of the island, due southwest of Havana, also took a hit. Cuba is famed for bracing for hurricanes, but this one will require recovery efforts throughout the rest of 2017.

Irma then crossed the Florida Straits.

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