Hurricane Wilma - October 2005 (1)

Hurricane Wilma sideswiped Havana on October 24, 2005, on its way to Florida. The worst part was not the 100-136 km/h southeast winds that hammered all Sunday night, but the surge that started on Monday's eve, combined with a hide tide, when the eye of the hurricane passed 170 km to the North of the capital and the direction of the winds inverted. Never ever the waterfront of the capital had been struck in this way by immense waves and continuous flodding. The damage is huge in the Habana Vieja, Centro Habana, Vedado, and Miramar coastal areas, and in Santa Fe and Baracoa, two small coast villages West of the Capital. On Monday I went on shooting with my 16-year old son, Jose Victor. In the morning we shot Vedado, and parts of Miramar in the afternoon. Large areas of the famous Malecón (seawall) were simply turned into sea. Chunks of the wall were thrown blocks inland by the waves. Many times, the waves that broke in the Morro castle rock hill, on the other side of the Bay's entry channel, went over the lighthouse. The two tunnels that cross the Almendares river and that divide Vedado from Miramar were covered with water, as the images will show. In Marina Hemingway, the three channels were turned into a single waterway. In the next days, as things return to normal, I will shoot more...the images you will see now come straight out of SONY 828, and Canon 20D...for the sake of time, the only thing I have done is to sharpen a little the images, and reduce their size...no cropping, no post processing...