Cuba says Hurricane Michelle did more economic damage than any storm during communist rule

The Miami Herald
November 9, 2001

Cuba says Hurricane Michelle did more economic damage than any storm during communist rule

By ANITA SNOW
Associated Press Writer

HAVANA -- (AP) -- Hurricane Michelle did more economic damage to Cuba last week than any other storm in four decades of communist rule, the government said.

While past hurricanes have caused more deaths, "none has provoked economic damage of the magnitude'' of this storm, Vice President Carlos Lage said Thursday night in a report broadcast live to the nation.

Michelle killed five people in Cuba when it hit the island Sunday with 135 mph winds. Another 12 people were killed in Central America and Jamaica.

Lage said the hurricane affected about 45 percent of the island's territory, home to about 5 million of the nation's 11 million citizens. Electrical and telephone systems
were hit hardest.

"Confronting Hurricane Michelle has been an extraordinary test of (the) people,'' Lage said. ``We will have to work more and better.''

Although Cuba is still recovering from its post-Soviet financial crisis, it does have some reserves to help rebuild collapsed buildings and toppled communications towers, President Fidel Castro said earlier this week.

Every person and business, Lage said, should know they ``will not be forgotten.'' He said a financial estimate of the damage was being calculated and that it would ``not hide any damage.''

At least 45,000 homes were damaged nationwide, state media have reported in recent days.

Sugar ministry officials said Cuba's important sugar crop was severely damaged. Nearly 1 million acres of sugarcane that was to be harvested later this month was
flattened.

Electricity, telephone service and running water were being restored Thursday, and Lage said most services would be operating by Sunday.

But the government said electricity in some regions would take longer, especially in hard-hit Matanzas province. Lage said some residents there will not have power until later this month.

He said the country's water system suffered only minor damage and that most interruptions in water service were due to lack of power.

In a separate statement read Thursday night on state television, the government expressed gratitude for the U.S. government's offer of possible humanitarian assistance.

Cuba said it needed the United States to relax restrictions so it could bring food and raw materials for medicine from the United States. It also asked for authorization to transport them directly to the island aboard Cuban ships.