Hurricane Rafael knocks out power in Cuba, weeks after nationwide blackout

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Cuba was without powerfulness erstwhile again arsenic beardown winds from Hurricane Rafael disconnected nan powerfulness crossed nan island, nan county's electric institution said, weeks aft different nationwide blackout.

The Category 3 storm swirled past nan Cayman Islands connected its measurement toward occidental Cuba connected Wednesday afternoon, making landfall successful nan state of Artemisa, conscionable eastbound of Playa Majana. The hurricane made landfall astatine 4:15 p.m. pinch maximum sustained winds adjacent 115 mph, nan National Hurricane Center said.

Millions of Cubans were without powerfulness successful October, which prompted nan authorities to instrumentality emergency measures to slash demand, including suspending classes, shutting down immoderate state-owned workplaces and canceling nonessential services. Cubans without powerfulness resorted to cooking pinch improvised wood stoves connected nan streets earlier nan nutrient went bad successful refrigerators arsenic they waited for nan powerfulness to spell backmost on.

The outage was nan latest successful a bid of problems pinch power distribution successful a state wherever energy has been restricted and rotated to different regions astatine different times of nan day. Various powerfulness installations successful nan state were damaged by Hurricane Ian leaving immoderate homes without energy for up to 8 hours a day. The October blackout was considered to beryllium Cuba's worst outage successful 2 years and powerfulness authorities took days to reconstruct power for astir 2 cardinal people.

Evacuation of group owed to Hurricane Rafael successful Cuba

The U.S. State Department issued an advisory for Cuba connected Tuesday afternoon, offering departure flights to non-essential unit and American citizens, and advising others to "reconsider recreation to Cuba owed to nan imaginable effect of Tropical Storm Rafael," earlier nan large wind grew into a hurricane.

On Tuesday morning, nan Cuban Civil Defense called connected Cubans to hole arsenic soon arsenic possible, because erstwhile nan large wind makes landfall "it's important to enactment wherever you are." The time before, authorities said they had issued an removal bid for 37,000 group successful acold eastbound Cuba, successful nan state of Guantanamo, owed to bad weather.

Hurricane Rafael's way is expected to proceed toward Florida and adjacent areas of nan southeast U.S. pinch dense rainfall forecast. Storm surges are predicted, and surges could scope 1 to 3 feet successful Dry Tortugas and 1 to 2 feet successful nan Lower Florida Keys.