On October 29, 2025, Melissa made landfall in eastern Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, unleashing sustained winds of 195 km/h across the provinces of Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, and Guantánamo. When the eye of the hurricane moved out to sea, a deceptive calm settled over the southern plains. Many families who had evacuated as a precaution returned to their homes after seeing that the winds had only torn down tree branches and lose roof tiles. However, in the mountains of southern Granma, the sky remained dark and the rain showed no respite. All the water shed by the mountain range began rushing down at once into the territory’s low-lying plains, overflowing the banks of the Cauto River. The first warning of the flood arrived in Bayamo, at the El Chapuzón recreational area. Within minutes, the river burst its ordinary banks, trapping the man guarding the facilities. Rescuers from the Cuban Red Cross and the fire department managed to pull him out alive, in a maneuver that would mark the start of the worst flooding in more than four decades in the area: more than eight thousand homes were damaged in the province of Granma. ***”Many families have lost everything, countless families have lost everything. They were practically left with only the clothes on their backs, because they had to leave everything else behind to save their lives. They lost many animals, including cattle; they lost sheep, pigs, cows.”*Sonia María Aguilar Sosa, Secretary of the Cuban Red Cross Granma Branch Ten days chest-deep in water What followed from the second night transformed the geography of the municipalities of Río Cauto and Cauto Cristo into a lagoon. The four-story basic secondary school, built on elevated ground more than 200 meters from the river’s regular course, was cut off like an isolated islet. ***”It was ten days of continuous work, practically chest-deep in water. I have lived here for 40 years and this had never happened before.”*Jorge Verdecia Ramírez, relief worker with the Cuban Red Cross Granma Branch. Aerial view of the fields in Granma For those living in low-lying areas, the real emergency began when they thought the danger had passed. This was the experience of Deisy Desideria Herrera Vega in her own home: “At six in the evening I went over to my cousin’s house to wait out the storm, the winds that were going to pass through in the early morning hours. The next day I returned home and found the little wood-burning stove where I cook, along with bushes and trees the wind had knocked down. The water came two days later.” “I kept checking the news; forecasts warned of potential flooding in Granma province, in the municipalities of Cauto Cristo and Río Cauto, and advised staying alert regarding those low-lying zones.” ***”My husband, some neighbors, and I were able to put a few things away. The next day people came by warning that the river was going to flood. With my own eyes, right by the side of the house, I saw the river already rising. I finished packing a few belongings with my husband. Then word came that we had to evacuate, and I set off for Cauto.”*Deisy Desideria Herrera Vega The magnitude of the flood overwhelmed immediate local capacities. To tackle rescue efforts, relief brigades mobilized from neighboring provinces such as Camagüey, Las Tunas, and Holguín, joining a joint operation utilizing amphibious vehicles from the Armed Forces alongside rescue helicopters. ***”We spent two days here in Río Cauto; we even had to carry out rescues by helicopter. We were around 15 rescue and relief workers from the Red Cross, and across all those days of rescue operations we must have evacuated more than 1, 000 people who were cut off, whose only lifeline was us. This is the largest rescue effort I have ever taken part in.”*Osmany Acosta, Cuban Red Cross relief worker. During the most critical hours, community messages proved lifesaving. Around midnight, Red Cross teams received a video with an urgent alert: several families were trapped on the concrete rooftop of a home in Río Cauto as the water threatened to submerge the structure. As soon as the sun came up, rescue boats arrived at the scene and safely evacuated the families, including several young boys and girls. ***”Every time I watch that video it touches me deeply, because it’s one’s homeland. Seeing so many desperate people, many of whom you know personally. .. When it happens at home, as I say, it hurts more, because it’s a part of you being affected.”*Jorge Verdecia Ramírez, relief worker with the Cuban Red Cross Granma Branch. Following the rescues, a wave of solidarity emerged. In local social media groups across Cauto Cristo and Bayamo, typically used for buying and selling goods, commercial posts gave way to spontaneous expressions of community gratitude, naming and thanking the young volunteers who risked their lives against the currents. Humanitarian diplomacy to speed up aid delivery Across the country, the Cuban Red Cross mobilized more than four thousand volunteers from the onset of the emergency. Amid the initial isolation following the storm, the IFRC was the first international organization to arrive on Cuban soil with humanitarian assistance aimed at the hardest-hit areas. For Dr. Carlos Ricardo Pérez Díaz, the Executive President of the Cuban Red Cross, this one-year review emphasizes the scale of the challenge and the importance of maintaining humanitarian initiatives on the ground. “One year after the hurricane, damage persists across many homes; some lost parts of their roofs and others lost them entirely.” “Even as we have brought more than 70 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba through international cooperation via the IFRC, the needs remain greater than what we have been able to do. We have concentrated primarily on health, shelter, and water and sanitation needs.” Response and recovery actions have been challenged by supply chain disruptions and a severe energy crisis. The head of the Cuban Red Cross highlights the logistical hurdles that had to be overcome, as well as the tireless dedication of the volunteer base: “Our volunteers have been deeply committed to humanitarian action at every level—locally, municipally, provincially, and above all nationwide; their dedication is our core pillar.” “But we have also received vital assistance from the IFRC, which conducted extensive humanitarian diplomacy to overcome numerous obstacles and bring this humanitarian aid into Cuba—from scheduling cargo flights to transport tons of relief supplies, to sea freight, which has been quite a challenge, and subsequently procuring fuel to expand the operational capacity of the Cuban Red Cross”. The value of early action Months before the hurricane’s landfall, the Cuban Red Cross had operationalized an anticipatory action framework nationwide, coordinating technically with scientific and meteorological institutions. “Within that anticipatory action framework, we already had certain supplies prepositioned, allowing us to launch our initial response: approximately one thousand hygiene kits were deployed to the most vulnerable communities a few days beforehand, which enabled us to respond with greater speed”. ***”Later came the supplies prepositioned at the IFRC logistics hub in Panama. The Emergency Appeal has also enabled us to build capacities and design an early action protocol in Cuba alongside the Institute of Meteorology, the National Institute of Water Resources, and Civil Defense, ensuring resources are prepositioned before another disaster strikes”. *Dr. Carlos Ricardo Pérez Díaz, Executive President of the Cuban Red Cross Community resilience amidst prolonged crisis One year after Melissa struck, nearly 1, 600 Cuban Red Cross volunteers remain active, maintaining an accompaniment that expanded beyond immediate relief distributions to focus on restoring community health and the local social fabric. ***”The Cuban Red Cross does not merely address physical needs; it also accompanies communities in building resilience and provides psychological support to individuals enduring very difficult circumstances who have not yet been able to recover.”*Dr. Carlos Ricardo Pérez Díaz, Executive President of the Cuban Red Cross The intervention also introduced energy solutions to safeguard essential services. Health clinics across Granma province, such as the Malaco clinic in Río Cauto and the hospital in Jiguaní, are now equipped with solar photovoltaic systems that secure continuous power in emergency rooms, maternity wards, and treatment storage areas. Furthermore, the response integrated solar pumping stations and the installation of a solar-powered water treatment plant for Cauto Cristo, designed to ensure that access to clean water is not dependent on the unstable conventional electrical grid.
Cuba: Living memories of water and people one year after Hurricane Melissa swept through Granma
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