BY: Staff Writer
October 22, 2024
As Hurricane Oscar made landfall on Inagua in The Bahamas on Sunday, little did they know before it left on its way to Cuba it would leave roads flooded and impassable in addition to leaving the island’s main economic engine, the Morton Salt plant, offline for an undetermined period.
That’s the news coming out of The Bahamas where Oscar has left in its wake damage and destruction that, while not anywhere near on the scale of Dorian in 2019, it is still crippling and is doing the same thing to Cuba.
Reports from Inagua have it that the main road to the Morton Salt plant is flooded along with the plant having no electricity. Workers are unable to return to work as clean up crews try to piece together some semblance of normalcy for residents.
OScar has now left Cuba as of Monday as tropical storm after making landfall in eastern Cuba as a Category 1 hurricane Sunday evening.
Oscar’s arrival to eastern Cuba Sunday has impacted millions of residents already facing days without power, as attempts to restore much of the nation’s electric grid continue to fail.
Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy said power would be restored for most by Monday night, while “the last customer may receive service by Tuesday”.
The category 1 hurricane made landfall near the city of Baracoa at 17:50 local time (21:50 GMT), where waves reaching up to 13ft (four meters) high hit the seafront.
There is also now a concern that OScar may come to The Bahamas a second time as models are not projecting the storm to return to the southeastern Bahamas before the end of the week.
Oscar was located 45 miles (75 kilometers) southeast of Long Island in the Bahamas on Tuesday morning. It had winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and was moving northeast at 12 mph (19 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
“Oscar is at best barely a tropical storm at this time,” the center said.
It was expected to drop up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain across the southeastern Bahamas, with up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) in isolated areas. A tropical storm warning was in effect for the central and southeastern Bahamas.