The Guantanamo visual artist Daniel Ross Diéguez has shared with his almost 7,000 followers on Facebook how he experienced the false alarm of the rupture of the San Antonio dam in his home province, due to the heavy rains brought by Hurricane Oscar in this territory.
"Many trucks started to turn around, hurried, signaling. That was when the first warning was formed. Cars from ETECSA, from the churches, workers from other provinces, maybe from embassies were coming. I remember there was a jeep loaded with several people, and that’s when we got worried. The cars were coming in droves. We understood that something bad had happened. Until a car stopped that was coming with quite a few people and gave us the news," he said in a Facebook live.
"We were in Baitiquirí, just two kilometers from San Antonio del Sur (26,457 inhabitants), and we had to turn back. We started picking up people. Among them was a young man who was very nervous. We began to alert everyone along the road who didn't know and who started running towards the mountains with their children," he points out.
Situations like this, denounces Daniel Ross Diéguez, could have been avoided through an early warning system, with a communicator. In this way, he adds, the population in San Antonio, one of the municipalities most affected by Hurricane Oscar, could have been alerted.
"Put a communicator in the dam and put another one in the town. We could have avoided all this tension that exists. We went through a very bad moment," he insisted.
According to what he explained, this Saturday he will try again to go to San Antonio to personally deliver many donations that have been sent to him because he is convinced that everything done before Sunday is crucial.
The serious situation in the Guantanamo municipalities of San Antonio del Sur and Imías has sparked a wave of solidarity towards those areas. This is the case of Wilmer Fernández, a young Cuban who posted a message this Thursday offering his private car, a Moskvitch, to make a trip this Friday to San Antonio del Sur to deliver donations to those affected by Hurricane Oscar.
After the devastation left in the wake of the cyclone, the weather alert remains in the area due to the continuation of heavy and intense rains in the northeastern part of the country, especially in the provinces of Holguín and Guantánamo, where severe flooding has been reported since early Friday morning.
A note from the Forecast Center of the Meteorological Institute of Cuba explains that the rainfall, which has been frequent in the last 24 hours, is associated with a frontal trough and the instability of a tropical wave to the south of the region.
Authorities have announced evacuations in flooded towns, including Baracoa and Cabacú, where intense rains have overflowed rivers like the Miel and inundated streets, worsening an already critical situation.
The early morning of this Friday brought intense rains to the eastern region of Cuba, especially in Baracoa, where the rains have triggered severe flooding in an area that is heavily affected by Hurricane Oscar.
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