10,000 Tobacco Barns Destroyed by Hurricane Ian

Hurricane Ian landed in Pinar del Rio last week and it was pretty clear that a lot of damage was done. Now, a week after the tragedy, it is clear how much damage. According to Cuban officials, 10,000 tobacco barns have been destroyed and the government says its unable to repair all of the tobacco barns.

Those 10,000 barns contained 10,000 tons of tobacco, which now needs to be stored away in structures that are inappropriate for curing it. And as a new planting season approaches, it seems certain that Tabacuba will not have barns into which to bring the next harvest.

Besides the tobacco barns, 38 buildings in Havana have been totally collapsed and 138 more are partially collapsed. In addition 178 roofs have totally collapsed and another 815 have partially collapsed. This brings the total number of damaged buildings to 1,169 according to official numbers, which aren’t always correct. It leaves many Cubans homeless.

The president of the state group Tabacuba, in charge of tobacco production in Cuba, Marino Murillo, acknowledged in Pinar del Río that the province does not have the necessary resources to build the 10,000 tobacco houses that Hurricane Ian left lying on the ground as a result of its strong winds and rains.

According to the official journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso, during the meeting with the highest authorities of the Communist Party (PCC) in the westernmost of the Cuban provinces, the local government confessed that there are no funds available for purchasing the wood required for rebuilding the barns where the tobacco leaf is cured. or the many square meters of zinc needed for their roofs.

Now efforts are focused on moving more than 10,000 tons of tobacco that was inside the damaged premises to other provinces. In parallel, preparations will begin to replant more than 90% of the seedbeds in order to start the next campaign within 45 days, according to the guidelines issued by Murillo.