There are no meteorologists or scientists working there, but a group of amateurs have taken charge of the place
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 7 November 2024 — Lost in the undergrowth of the Cienfuegos Escambray, the MRL-5 Soviet radar station looks more like a relic of the Cold War – it was inaugurated in 1989 – than a functional meteorological installation. To get to it you have to go seven kilometers away from the road and climb 223 concrete steps. Whoever manages to conquer the route will be 1,140 meters above sea level and exposed to winds of extreme violence on hurricane days.
Among the few willing to go up to the radar of Pico San Juan – although in reality the station is on the mountain known as La Cuca – there are no meteorologists or scientists, but a group of amateurs who have taken charge of the place after the stampede of the professionals. “Salaries that do not reach 4,000 pesos, isolation and transportation difficulties drove away the specialists and experienced teams,” explains Televisión Cubana, which interviewed the workers during an expedition to the Sierra de Guamuhaya.
The radar station employs two groups of three or four operators. There are ten in total. They go up in a truck as far as the road allows and from there climb a ladder with a 45-degree slope that leads to the radar. In the distance, among the vegetation, the huge sphere of cement that the device contains is visible. The “mountaineers” – as the official press calls them – remain there for a week.
The terrain is 1,000 kilometers in diameter and has 785,000 square kilometers of area
The terrain is so intricate that the workers in charge of opening the road that leads to the place gave up in the 80s until a farmer in the area showed them a path. The anecdote is famous in the Escambray. “Look for a bulldozer and let it fall behind my mule,” said the man, a kind of healer in the area – and militiaman in the service of Fidel Castro – known as the Gallego Otero.
Young people in the area consider that working on the station is “an opportunity,” because as children they regarded the installation with reverence. Cuban Television does not reveal how much the State pays them, but it implies that either they do not receive any salary or the payment is minimal. The most “experienced” worker, Lázaro Moreno, has been a “principal specialist” of radar for just over eight months.
Moreno says that it only takes “a few notions of electricity and mechanics” and some meteorology to work in the facilities. The rest of the “boys,” he says, are “young and from my own neighborhood.” The transport crisis has forced the recruitment of operators only from nearby homes, in case “they have to come suddenly.”
A married couple, Ada and Erwing, are also part of the group as “observers.” Erwing hopes to “be able to prepare better” in the future. It’s been “barely three months,” he confesses. Moreno, just as enthusiastic, plans to “retreat” there. “We have many programs on the computer and are preparing,” he adds.
“They have overcome their fear of being inexperienced,” says the reporter who interviewed the group. The radar does not have a high technological level either; it has been operating for 35 years with the same equipment sent by the Soviet Union. With a few instructions, they can handle it.
“The radar works automatically. It makes an observation every ten minutes and sends it to the National Radar Center of Camagüey,” explains Moreno. From its coordinates – 21º 59’ north latitude and 80º 08’ west latitude – the radar collects information on a circumference that goes from the beaches of Baconao, in Santiago, to the Cape of San Antonio, and from Hollywood (Florida), to a point in the Caribbean Sea not far from the island of Grand Cayman.
The sweep is 1,000 kilometers in diameter and over 785,000 square kilometers of area. The height of the radar allows eliminating the effect of the curvature of the Earth and expands the range of observation.
The station was built by orders of Castro, who claimed that several hurricanes had wreaked havoc on the Island because there was no station in the Escambray. Working on it, at the beginning, was the dream of many ambitious meteorologists. However, the place soon fell into oblivion, and the Government abandoned it to its fate. A house next to the station, an electrical plant and the radar building itself attest to the fact that Pico San Juan has seen better times.
The plant is essential to maintain operations during a hurricane, but activating it – say its operators – is a nightmare. The wind can “tear off the clothes” of a worker while he is pouring the fuel. Other times, in order not to risk their lives during the wind, several have to hold on to each other if they want to light the plant.
In Pico San Juan, temperatures are sometimes close to zero, and conditions are precarious. There is only one sign of the Government’s concern for one of the key points of Cuban meteorology: a diploma with a photo of Díaz-Canel, signed by local officials, which celebrates the operation of the radar station after 35 years.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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