14ymedio, Havana, 23 January 2017 — As it happens each winter just a few minutes have been enough for the Havana Malecon and its environs to be flooded by the sea, after the arrival of a strong and extensive extratropical low in the west of Cuba.
The Forecast Center of the Institute of Meteorology issued its special Number Three Advisory at noon this Monday to warn of floods along the northwest coast. Cars and people have been trapped by the sudden arrival of the waters that with all their force break against the Malecon and flood important Havana arterials with the peculiar smell of algae.
Strong winds of the Northwest region between 15 and 25 miles per hour, with gusts that can be “over 35 miles per hour, make many neighbors worry about the possible collapses of buildings approaching 100 years of age, which have barely been maintained over the intervening decades.
“I will stay here until [the waters] come down because I’m afraid to leave when it is like this,” says an elderly person who had arrived this afternoon at the Presidente Hotel to connect to the internet and talk to his family in the United States.
Within a few minutes of three in the afternoon the sea began to overlow the Havana Malecon. Close to 4:00 pm, the water reached G Street and Linea and some passers-by who tried to arrive at their destination had to take off their shoes and to turn up their trousers to be able to advance.
This meteorological situation, according to specialists, will begin to decrease gradually from Tuesday morning, when the winds turn to the north and diminish in their intensity.
