Cuba is facing a ‘humanitarian crisis’ after Hurricane Oscar made landfall this weekend.
The storm caused the country’s power grid to collapse for the fourth time in two days as residents faced food and water shortages.
It has brought strong winds and heavy rain to the region and between 15 and 30 centimeters of rain are expected to fall on Wednesday, while parts of eastern Cuba could receive up to 50 centimeters of rain.
Excessive rainfall could lead to life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned Monday.
Meteorologists have spent the past week monitoring the progress of the storm, which was expected to develop into a tropical depression this weekend.
However, the NHC officially upgraded Oscar to a Category 1 hurricane at 2 a.m. ET on Sunday after reaching winds of 85 miles per hour.
“The hurricane’s impact on Cuba is extremely concerning due to Cuba’s ongoing power grid crisis,” said Jon Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist.
Meteorologists said the storm could also reach parts of North America, bringing heavy rain and gusty winds.
Cuba was hit by Hurricane Oscar on Saturday, causing flash flooding and power outages in the area
“Adding a hurricane hit on top of the existing power outage could make the impact of the hurricane much worse, further endangering lives and creating challenges in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from hurricane impacts,” Porter said.
Hurricane Oscar made landfall about five miles west of Guantanamo on Sunday shortly before 6 p.m. ET.
The NHC expects it to continue moving through Cuba this afternoon before heading southeast toward the Bahamas.
Meteorologists predicted the storm could intensify into a Category 2 hurricane by Sunday afternoon, but as of Monday morning the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm as wind speeds decreased to about 45 miles per hour.
The NHC said it expects the storm to continue to weaken as it moves over Cuba’s mountainous terrain, but that it will likely still be a tropical storm as it moves toward the Bahamas.
“Some people were surprised by the rapid intensification of the tropical rainstorm into Tropical Storm Oscar and then Hurricane Oscar on Saturday afternoon, but AccuWeather customers were not surprised,” Porter said.
The NHC declared Oscar a hurricane only hours after it made landfall.
The AccuWeather team had been monitoring the storm since Oct. 14 and predicted it would develop into a tropical storm that would bring “damaging winds and flooding rainfall to parts of the northern Caribbean,” Porter continued.
Oscar was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday evening after wind speeds decreased from 130 to 45 miles per hour
The storm is expected to move northeast toward the Bahamas on Tuesday, bringing up to eight inches of rain
Meanwhile, the NHC said there was only a 10 percent chance that Oscar would not develop into a more severe storm until Friday afternoon.
This is what a spokesperson for the NHC says TIME that Oscar’s development into a hurricane was somewhat unexpected, adding, “Unfortunately the system kind of snuck up on us.”
Porter warned that the combination of heavy rainfall, flash floods, mudslides and rockslides in the steep terrain of southeastern Cuba “could result in a humanitarian crisis in some parts of southeastern Cuba.”
AccuWeather has warned that the significant winds and flooding will likely damage small buildings, mobile homes and trees and cause rolling power outages that could last weeks.
The majority of Cuba’s 10 million residents were without power when Oscar made landfall this weekend
Cubans have been in the dark since the power grid collapsed in Havana on Friday, affecting most of the country’s 10 million residents.
The government had restored power to only a fifth of residents by the next day, but collapsed twice more on Saturday evening and Sunday, prompting people to protest the three-day blackout.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has since criticized the protests video posted on Xsaying that they have caused public disorder and “We will not allow acts of vandalism much less affect the peace of our people.”
Locals also struggle to access fresh food and a steady water supply, which has declined across the country.
People in Havana queued for hours to buy loaves of bread, which quickly sold out, and communicated via WhatsApp with people who still had power or generators to make arrangements to store medicine in their refrigerators.
Although Cuba is expected to remain lashed by rainfall through Wednesday, the eye of the storm – which is moving westward at a speed of two miles per hour – will move near the southeastern and central Bahamas within the next 24 hours move.
The NHC expects the storm to cause localized flash flooding and bring three to five inches of rain, with up to eight inches falling in some areas.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Klines told DailyMail.com that “there is a possibility that (Oscar) could reach all the way into Eastern Canada,” but that he would not reach the area until later Thursday or Friday.
He clarified that Oscar would not be a tropical storm or hurricane by the time it reaches North America, and while it won’t travel over land, “they will get the so-called backside of the storm if it comes up like that.” far.’
The US won’t be affected by the storm, which will linger over the mid-Atlantic, Kline said, adding that “a lot of things would really have to go wrong for this to impact the eastern part of the US.” It’s very unlikely.’