This Saturday night the floods began to recede but left behind a very worrying panorama of mud, dirt and material damage.
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, June 23, 2024 — “I slept on the table because the bed got wet and I couldn’t put a sheet on the floor, it was all flooded,” this is how Leidy, age 32, a resident of the neighborhood of Los Sitios in Havana, describes her situation. The area, which is traditionally flooded with rains, has been one of the most affected by the intense downpours that this Saturday covered large areas of the Cuban capital with water.
On Saturday night the floods began to subside but left a very worrying picture. “Here everything is full of mud and garbage; the cisterns are contaminated; we don’t have electricity and many neighbors have lost everything because the water level rose very quickly; there was no time for anything,” she tells 14ymedio.
Leidy says that in her neighborhood they are “flood experts” and have put up walls at the entrances to their homes and have ways to evacuate mattresses, household appliances and to take children and the elderly to the upper floors. But this Saturday’s downpour showed that “you can believe that you have everything planned but when nature says ‘I am here’ there is no one to stop her.”
Los Sitios, like most of the neighborhoods in Havana, has gone months with mountains of garbage accumulating on the corners and waste that covers the drains, aggravating the situation. “In my house we woke up today and there is nothing to eat. Our bread got wet, water got inside the refrigerator and a mortadella that had been kept for the children was spoiled because the water inside was disgusting, with a foul smell and a lot of things floating around.”
Leidy fears the possible health repercussions of having been in those dirty waters: “It got above my waist, and I had to spend hours to take out the garbage, trying to put the furniture on top of each other. I’m still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, which can’t be very good for my health.”
“We neighbors are the ones who are cleaning the sewers with sticks, with brooms, with what we can; we are the ones uncovering the drains,” complains a neighbor of Old Havana where the water exceeded 3.4 feet in height.
In many corners of Central Havana, Old Havana and Cerro the panorama is repeated: mountains of garbage that the rain couldn’t carry away, a foul stench
