International Development Journalism Competition: Disaster Recovery in Viñales
"Era un disastre" my young guide told me. He gestured across the steamy tobacco fields from the shell of his small house. "The drying houses were torn apart, all the chickens were blown away."
The Viñales landscape is extraordinary. Lush farmland nestles in a gentle valley, dominated by colossal limestone crags erupting from the fields. Dowsed regularly by tropical rains and baked daily in the Caribbean sun, the crags sweat nutrients into the rich tobacco fields.
Little evidence now remains of Hurricane Gustav, which tore through the region in September 2008. This disaster left 100,000 houses, schools and workplaces damaged, 6000 homes beyond repair. Hurricane Ike followed barely a week later, sweeping across central Cuba. Remarkably, 3 million people were evacuated across Cuba over the course of the 2008 hurricane season – over a quarter of the population – without a single life being lost.
Preparedness
In fact, Cuba enjoys something of a celebrity status for its disaster mitigation strategies. Both the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and the United Nations Development Programme point to the Cuban model as an example for other Caribbean countries to emulate (indeed, the UNDP's Caribbean Risk Management Initiative is based in Havana).
According to 2004 Oxfam report "Weathering the Storm", the key to Cuba's disaster mitigation lies in community mobilisation at a grassroots level. As the hurricane season approaches, community and neighbourhood associations conduct local level "risk mapping", identifying vulnerable locations and buildings sturdy enough to serve as shelters. The findings are fed into regional hurricane response plans coordinated by Cuba's National Civil Defence network. Preparations are then disseminated through workplaces, local government and Cuba's national curriculum, culminating in a national simulation exercise every May. When a storm is approaching, therefore, the infrastructure is in place. The Cuban Institute of Meteorology can rely on state media to publish its warnings, while factory foremen and local governors can assume their Civil Defence roles with a detailed knowledge of priority evacuees, reliable shelters and the resources – vehicles and volunteers – which will be at their disposal.
As well as comprehensive planning, the report points to the "social capital" generated by such integration at the local level. Local women's associations are trusted by the pregnant women in their locality to ensure their evacuation. The local ham radio association is placed on standby in case the telephone systems fail. Citizens' roles in disaster mitigation and widespread faith in the contingency planning stand in stark contrast to attitudes in the United States. A 2007 survey conducted by the US National Center for Disaster Preparedness found that only 49% of respondents trusted the President to give reliable and accurate information on a natural or terror threat. Although the mechanics of evacuation in the Southern States would no doubt be very different – for example, far greater reliance on private transportation – that 82% of respondents would trust a sheriff or police commissioner to provide the same information suggests potential enthusiasm for a local-led response.
Recovery
The dominance of the public sector in employment in Cuba provides a large pool of labour, which the central government may direct to the affected region to bolster the clean-up operation. In recovery and reconstruction, however, there would seem to be little substitute for hard cash. The Cuban Government estimated losses in the 2008 hurricane season to total $10 billion, around one fifth of national GDP. Inevitably, international aid to Cuba takes on a strong political dimension. The Bush Administration's offer of $5 million (increased from an original $100,000) was rejected by Raúl Castro, who demanded instead the revocation of the United State's longstanding economic restrictions on the island so that Cuba could buy materials. With resources scarce, it falls to the central Cuban government to dictate the priorities for reconstruction. The local population have little option but to wait for their turn to come.
The system may favour Viñales: with tobacco providing Cuba's third largest source of hard currency, one would expect restoration of the region to be prioritised. The tobacco drying houses had been re-built and rural life had resumed. My newly married guide was soon to be a father, and with his father's help was building his first home on a pocket of land on the edge of the farm. He had proudly guided me through the structure where his father was busy sawing; the kitchen worktops, the electrical fittings, the newly concreted veranda.
"Y los asientos?" I asked him, knowing it was a terrible translation. I mimicked a chair rocking back and forth with my hand, the ubiquitous pastime of evenings in Cuba. His eyes lit up. "Ya lo compró!" he declared, laughing and exchanging a proud glance with his father. The house barely had a roof and floor, but the rocking chairs had already been purchased and were at his father's house. The recovery of the town may have owed more to its profitable landscape, but it was through the evacuation planning that the family had survived.
This feature was written for the Guardian International Development Journalism competition before 13 June 2011.