Cuba's Recovery After Hurricane Sandy

As Manhattan begins to recover after hurricane Sandy with subways up and running and lights shining down on the city Cuba continues to struggle with getting power restored. On October 25, 2012 Hurricane Sandy swept through Cuba as a Category 2 hurricane. At this time, November 5, 2012, only 28 percent of the city of Santiago’s electricity grid has been restored. Although they have crews working around the clock to restore energy to homes and businesses it is estimated that electricity won’t be fully restored until November 15. Although both Cuba and New York have high population densities causing them both to be vulnerable to storms Cuba is LDC whereas New York is MDC making recovery from the storm easier for New York. New York is receiving extremely high volumes of media coverage which makes receiving aid easier compared to Cuba who isn’t receiving as much media coverage and is recovering much slower than New York. Cuba also sustained major losses of coffee and other crops which will make long term economic recovery a struggle. More than 200,000 homes and 129 schools were destroyed leaving many without homes and children having to attend school in private homes. This will cause the reconstruction period to be long term. It will also, more than likely, create an indirect gain of jobs.

 

This is an image of residents in Santiago, Cuba walking through the rubble left from Hurricane Sandy on October 26, 2012

Article Source: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/11/05/hurricane-sandy-cuba-continues-to-struggle-with-power-outages/

Image Source: http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/15/73/51/3652213/3/628x471.jpg