Cuba went without electricity after Hurricane Rafael

Cuban authorities were scrambling to restore power to the island Thursday morning after Hurricane Rafael knocked out the country’s power grid, leaving 10 million people in the dark.

The grid collapsed Wednesday afternoon as Rafael tore through Cuba with peak winds of 115 mph (185 km/h), damaging homes, uprooting trees and knocking down telephone poles.

The hurricane had moved 155 miles (250 km) north and west of Havana by Thursday morning and turned into the Gulf of Mexico, where it no longer posed an immediate threat of landfall, the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center said. Rafael was the latest blow to the communist-run country’s already precarious power grid, which collapsed several times just two weeks ago, leaving many in the country without power for days.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines said it had already started work to restore the national power grid late Wednesday, but warned that the process would be slower in the western parts of the island, which were hardest hit by the storm.

Emergency workers had returned power to some circuits, state-run media said, although Havana remained largely without power by dawn Thursday.

Rafael, the second hurricane to hit the island in less than a month after Oscar ravaged eastern Cuba in October, added to existing power problems.

The country’s dilapidated oil-fired generation plants have struggled to keep the lights on for decades, but this year the system collapsed in crisis as oil imports fell from allied countries – Venezuela, Russia and Mexico. Rolling blackouts that last for hours have become the norm across much of Cuba.

Heavy rain was still falling in the capital Havana early Thursday as surf pounded the waterfront Malecon boulevard, leaving many low-lying areas and roads flooded. Downed tree limbs, debris and debris blocked many roads, complicating travel and recovery efforts.

Havana’s airport was scheduled to remain closed through at least noon Thursday, officials said.

The storm swept across Artemisa province, an important agricultural region in a country already suffering from severe food shortages. Strong winds and rain prompted authorities to protectively harvest ripening fruits and vegetables rather than take a total loss.

State-run media showed images of downed power lines, metal roofs strewn across the city’s streets and broken windows. Flooding was widespread.

Rafael grazed the Cayman Islands as a Category 1 cyclone on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale before strengthening in less than 24 hours to the much more powerful Category 3, making landfall on Cuba’s southwest coast.