U.S. ignored Cuban advice on hurricanes - twice

A nonfiction book titled “Isaac’s Storm,” written by Erik Larson, vividly details a horrific hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas, on Sept. 8, 1900. The hurricane killed over 8,000 people—one-sixth of the population, destroyed one-third of the city and sank most of the island under water.

At the time, Isaac’s Storm was the greatest storm ever to hit the U.S. It forever changed the course of history for Galveston.

The book documents a series of errors and miscalculations which, had they not occurred, could have saved lives. One of those miscalculations was a patronizing and colonial view towards an island in the Caribbean that had, in fact, a great deal of knowledge about hurricanes.

That island was Cuba.

In his book, Larson describes how if Isaac Cline—the weather meteorologist in charge of the operations in Galveston at the time of the storm—had paid attention to warnings from Cuba about the impending storm, history would have taken a different course for Galveston and its people. It was not the only mistake, but it was an important one.

Larson writes, “Cuba’s meteorologists had pioneered the art of hurricane predictions; its best weathermen were revered by the Cuban public.” By 1870, the Belén Observatorio in Havana had dedicated itself to finding the meteorological signals that warned of the advance of a hurricane.

No different today

Fast forward to May 23-26, 2007, when a meeting between U.S. and Cuban hurricane experts took place in Monterrey, Mexico, organized by the Center for International Policy.

This U.S.-Cuba Hurricane Summit was the first event of its kind, according to organizers. It was attended by Wayne Smith of the organizing Center; Dagoberto Rodríguez, head of the Cuban Interests Section in the U.S.; several journalists and hurricane experts from Louisiana State University hurricane center; and the emergency management directors of Mobile County in Alabama.

However, a U.S. meteorologist from Miami, Lixion Avilia, was prohibited from attending the conference. The U.S. State Department reportedly detained Avilia in Dallas en route to Monterrey, Mexico, and told him not to attend the U.S.-Cuba Summit.

The Cubans are not only experts in predicting hurricanes. They are vastly superior to the U.S. in protecting their population from these natural disasters. If the U.S. government was truly concerned about the millions of people in the path of ever-more-deadly hurricanes and storms, it not only would have sent more experts to attend this important conference. It would have allowed the conference to take place in the U.S.

Conference organizers were forced to have the event in Mexico so that Cubans could attend.

But the U.S. government is not concerned with the plight of its population. The whole world was reminded of this in August 2005 when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast region. The human and material loss was enormous, but the real neglect and devastation was the fault of the government, not the hurricanes. Monies that should have been used to shore up the levees were diverted to the war against Iraq.

This was yet another example of the insidious racist nature of this system and the contempt this government has for Black people and the poor.

Two attendees from Cuba at the Monterrey Summit were Dr. José Borges Rodríguez and Dr. Daniel Loriet Andreu representing the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade. This brigade was set to come to New Orleans after Katrina to offer assistance and bring 1,600 doctors and 36 tons of medical supplies. The U.S. government callously barred this aid.

The brigade instead departed for Pakistan and Indonesia, where major earthquakes had taken a terrible toll.

The June 3 Times Picayune from New Orleans writes about the Monterrey Summit: “Since Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana has awakened to the importance of developing evacuation plans that take pets into account. Cuba builds an extra measure into the island’s emergency planning: Not only are pets sheltered in the face of an approaching storm, provision also is made for packing up and moving refrigerators, televisions and other hard-won possessions. That was one insight exchanged between Cubans and their counterparts in emergency management from Louisiana and other Gulf Coast locations at a hurricane conference last week in this Mexican city of 3.6 million nestled in mountains 180 miles away from Gulf waters.”

Possessions, as well as their owners, were contemptuously disregarded by FEMA and the U.S. government in Louisiana in the aftermath of Katrina.

The Cuban government on the other hand—a socialist government that organizes to defend, not defeat the people—handles these things another way.

A well-known and respected Cuba solidarity activist from Houston, Tex., was in Cuba in 2004 and saw firsthand how the Cuban government prepares for hurricanes. Ernest McMillan wrote to movement activists in 2004: “Hurricane Ivan is scheduled to make a visit here late tomorrow night or by early Sunday. Jamaica is feeling it now. Looks like my plans for church on Sunday are out! Anyway, you can probably imagine the tension and preoccupation here right now. There is so much spirit of resolve though (that fear and the hype we are typically bombarded with by the U.S. media during similar conditions are non-existent.) The government is treating this as if a military invasion is taking place. Generals, soldiers and even Fidel sit besides meteorologists and public health professionals in an uninterrupted (commercial free) dialog about the many aspects of the approaching cyclone, the multi-sided impact it could have as well as the various precautions being taken. They are mobilizing an intelligent, well grounded citizenry to action. Students secure their classrooms and school buildings. Public works personnel, medical teams and soldiers position themselves in strategic stations throughout the city and countryside in advance of the storm, rather than after the fact as we are accustomed to here.”

This is one reason why Cuban doctors were not allowed to come to New Orleans in 2005. The people of the region would have been awakened to another kind of society, a socialist society. That idea would have been embraced by a people who were reminded once again that this is a country built on slavery that aims to keep its workers and oppressed down.

A socialist way of handling hurricanes would have sounded damn good.