LA COLOMA, Cuba (AP) — Soldiers fix roofs and raise power poles under a blazing sun, while teachers salvage wet school books and residents cook over wood fires in La Coloma, a fishing and industrial town on Cuba’s coast that took the brunt of Hurricane Ian.

Ten days after the storm left still unquantified devastation across western Cuba, and knocked out the power grid nationwide, many Cubans are still without electricity, water or basic goods. The destruction from Ian has piled onto the hardship of people who had already been suffering through scarcity and shortages in recent years.

“The ceiling was damaged, the mattress got wet,” said homemaker Yaneysi Polier, who looked scared as she stirred a pot with pressed ham and lard cooking over coals on the floor of the patio of her house. Her still-wet mattress was in the sun drying.

“The refrigerator was found in the mud by our neighbor’s house. We set up something to sleep on. The water was up to our chests,” she said.

Only 15 per cent of western Pinar del Río province has electricity and no one has their power back in La Coloma, a town of some 7,000 people 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Havana.

Repeated blackouts on Cuba’s already fragile electric grid were among the causes of the island’s largest social protests in decades in July 2021.

Thousands of people, weary of power failures and shortages of goods exacerbated by the pandemic and US sanctions, turned out in cities across the island to vent their anger and some also lashed out at the government. Hundreds were arrested and prosecuted, prompting harsh criticism of the administration of President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The recent arrival of Ian caused three deaths and in Pinar del Rio province damaged 63,000 homes, thousands of which were destroyed. Cuba had a deficit of about 800,000 houses even before the hurricane struck.

La Coloma is home to the state Industrial Fishing Combine, which processes 40 per cent of the lobster caught on the island, most of which is exported. It also processes bonito and snapper fish, and residents say it was high season when Ian struck. Twelve fishing boats were damaged, some sunk.

Maribel Rodríguez is staying in an emergency shelter in a primary school along with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who is about to give birth. She said they will name the baby Ian.

“This hurricane took everything from me,” Rodríguez said. “My house was not good, but it had many things of value — a refrigerator, a television, living room furniture, beds and kitchenware — and I had earned those with my sacrifice. This is very painful.”

Both Rodríguez and her son work in the fishing plant complex and they worry about it shutting down in the middle of lobster season.

“Here, the only place to work is the combine and I have been there for many years. You have to make a living,” she said.

Ian hit Cuba with winds of more than 125 mph (200 kph) on Sept. 27. It not only affected Pinar de Rio, but also the provinces of Artemisa, Mayabeque and Havana More than 30,000 people were evacuated ahead of the hurricane’s arrival.

Besides the damage to houses, the power infrastructure and industry, the Ministry of Agriculture estimated that Ian damaged 8,583 hectares (21,210 acres) of crops in the three provinces, especially bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, corn, rice and tomatoes.