[NYTr] Cuban Leaders Visit Areas Affected by Hurricane Noel

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Granma Daily - 3 November, 2007
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art02.html


Cuban Leaders Visit Areas Affected by Hurricane Noel

by Pastor Batista Valdes

PUERTO PADRE.— After being affected by the passing of hurricane Noel,
which is considered the deadliest of this season in the Caribbean,
eastern Cuban provinces are receiving the visits of government
officials, a practice that is almost a tradition in revolutionary Cuba,
where the main leaders of the nation have always worked side by side
with the people in the areas affected by climate phenomena.

This time, the working groups of the government and the Party
evaluating the magnitude of the damage caused by the rains are headed
by Politburo member Jose Ramon Machado Ventura.

These groups met with the people of Vazquez, a town that had to deal
with a 72 hour blackout, floods that affected hundreds of houses,
considerable damage for families and the national economy, and cut off
by road.

Accompanied by Jorge Cuevas Ramos, member of the Central Committee and
first secretary of the Party in Las Tunas, Machado Ventura listened to
the opinions of many neighbours affected by the hurricane, and told
them that the government would help them to solve the most serious
problems as soon as possible. Ventura pointed out that this is not the
situation of a single province, but of half the eastern part of Cuba,
and he said that he had confidence in the power of the united efforts
of both the population and the organizations in the territory.

Minutes before listening to the report by president of the Municipal
Council of Defense in Puerto Padre, Machado talked to the people of
this community, and he praised the kindness and unselfishness of people
like Manuel Arnoldo Pavon, a man who is sheltering, feeding and morally
supporting 20 of his neighbours who had to abandon their houses due to
the floods.

"Obviously," Machado Ventura reflected, "none of the affected families
can feel happy in such a complicated situation, but they know that
neither the province nor the country will stop working to fix damage;
we don’t feel defeated."

In Vazquez, as in other points on their journey, many neighbours took
advantage of the presence of the visitors to send messages to President
Fidel Castro, wishing him a swift recovery and transmitting the support
of the people.