Ian Devastates Cuban Grid, Tobacco Belt
Hurricane Ian knocked out power across the entire nation of Cuba, and killed two people, in the six hours it took to traverse the island Tuesday. The storm made landfall as a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 125 mph and was expected to dump as much as 16 inches of rain in places. The storm inflicted heavy damage on Pinar del Rio Province at the western tip of the island, destroying buildings, including those used for tobacco production, and damaging 40% of banana plantations in neighboring Artemisa Province. "Sometimes hurricanes pass through here, but not of this magnitude," tobacco farmer Abel Hernandez, 49, told Reuters. "It destroyed our houses, our drying huts, our farms, the fruit trees, everything."
(Reuters, AP, CNN, Axios, Yale Climate Connections, New York Times $, BBC, New York Times $)
(Climate Signals background: Hurricanes)
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