Hurricane Rafael rips through Cuba, knocking out power again

Cuba’s power grid was once again knocked out after Hurricane Rafael ripped through the island late Wednesday (Nov. 6) as a Category 3 storm.

Some ten million people were left in the dark without electricity due to the hurricane, which reportedly topped winds of to 115 mph (185 kph), damaging homes, uprooting trees and toppling telephone poles, according to Reuters.

It’s the latest blow to Cuba’s already precarious power situation. Just last month, the country’s electrical grid collapsed several times, leaving residents without power for days. Major airports and most resorts, however, continued to operate during the outage, using generators.

Parts of Eastern Cuba are also still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Oscar, a Category 1 storm that inundated the country with heavy rains last month.

The Cuba Tourist Board says this storm didn’t affect any hotels or tourist infrastructure in Holguin, since it went through Guantanamo province “where there are no major resorts.”

Rafael's wrath

According to the National Hurricane Centre (NHC), Hurricane Rafael struck the Cuban province of Artemisa, just east of Playa Majana, at 4:15 p.m. ET yesterday.

In a 1 a.m. update, the NHC said Rafael was 115 miles west-northwest of Havana. The storm's maximum sustained winds had weakened to 105 mph, making it a Category 2 storm.

Rafael, the 17th named storm of the season, also knocked out power in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, where flooding and landslides have been reported.

The hurricane moved 250 km north and west of Havana by Thursday morning, spinning off into the Gulf of Mexico where it no longer poses an immediate threat to land, the NHC says. 

Forecasts show that Rafael could make landfall anywhere from the Texas coast to the Florida Panhandle by this weekend, according to AccuWeather, which says the highest probability of landfall is along the central Louisiana coast as a tropical storm.

Airlines activate flexible policies

Earlier this week, Cuba’s Varadero Airport announced a temporary closure ahead of Rafael’s arrival. As per an advisory posted to Sunwing Vacations’ website, the airport is set to reopen today (Nov. 7) at around 12:00 p.m. local time.

Sunwing says it has delayed all flights to Varadero until November 7 “at minimum,” with the potential for flights on November 7 to be further delayed pending any changes to the airport's reopening date and time due to the impact of the storm.

Sunwing customers are being asked to sign up for flight alerts and to check their flight status for the most up-to-date information.

The company has also activated some flexible rebooking policies. Click here to review the options.  

WestJet, too, has activated flexible policies for travel to Varadero on November 7. Click here to review. To view Air Canada’s hurricane policies, click here.

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