Without reporting any significant damage to the passage of tropical storm Laura on Sunday night, Las Tunas is preparing to reestablish its daily life as quickly as possible.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- The average rainfall recorded in different regions of the province the day before did not exceed 20 millimeters, except in the towns of Bartle, Las Margaritas and Guayabal with 50, 48, and 53 millimeters, respectively. In fact, it was in the latter, located in the municipality of Amancio, where the most important coastal flooding occurred, although they did not severely damage the place.
The Puerto Padre meteorological station registered gusts of wind of 86 kilometers per hour and others of 83 were recorded by the station of the provincial capital. According to the report of the local Meteorological Center, Laura's winds on Las Tunas soil averaged about 50 kilometers per hour.
Jaime Chiang Vega, vice president of the Provincial Defense Council, reported that, throughout the territory, Laura only caused the collapse of one house and the loss of the roof in two others. The greatest impact of the meteor was on the electricity service, because at dawn this Monday, 71 thousand customers were without electricity, 19 thousand in the city of Las Tunas and specifically the inhabitants of the town of Bartle, completely disconnected from the National Power Grid.
In this regard, executives of the Electricity Company assured that during the course of the day these effects could be restored since they are mostly due to downed cables. Everything will depend, they said, on going through all the damaged circuits to locate the exact sites of the breakdowns.
Throughout Las Tunas, 52,259 people were evacuated, of which 9,000 moved to the homes of family or friends. Manuel Pérez Gallego, president of the Provincial Defense Council, highlighted the discipline and organization shown by the population, who in several places left the danger sites on their own initiative.
"The culture of evacuation has been gained," he said. The also first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in the province indicated that the most important issue now is to restore the identified damages, especially in infrastructure and basic services.
In this regard, authorities of the Business Group of Commerce announced that in the next few hours all warehouses and shops will reopen, including the 249 establishments, from which the stored products were removed to avoid possible losses. For their part, representatives of the Transport Company announced the reestablishment of public passenger transportation this Monday afternoon; the main drinking water pumping stations are also restarting their normal operation.
Nor did the tourist facilities in Las Tunas suffer considerable damage, so that those assigned to the Accommodation and Popular Camping companies will soon return to their normal operations. Likewise, starting Tuesday, the stores belonging to the Caribe chain and CIMEX Corporation will reopen.
Meanwhile, the machines of the Stainless Steel Company turned on again, thus witnessing the return to work of the main industries. As will the Agriculture system and Azcuba, which also did not regret any damage to the various crops nor sugarcane.
Tropical Storm Laura was the first tropical cyclonic organism that directly affected the province of Las Tunas in the current cyclonic season, since "Isaías" traveled through the seas north of the Cuban Archipelago and Tropical Storm Marco only affected the westernmost region of Cuba.
