Cubans sceptical of new president's promises

The courses Castro could follow were limited. The US wanted to resume business as usual, at first, and make him a new Batista. He knew if he resisted he would be overthrown by the US eventually. So he became a communist and instituted a repressive system that kept the people as poorly off as under the previous government. It's always the way. Each nation is Animal Farm in most respects.

Cuba's evacuations differ greatly from those in the United States, where people rush to airports for overbooked flights or pile into cars that clog highways. In Cuba, people are already prepared, part of a sophisticated system overseen by the president and the armed forces.

Standing evacuation plans are distributed to each household long ahead of time, and evacuation drills are held regularly. When a hurricane is approaching, state news media issue early warnings and civil-defense officials activate local response networks, organized down to each block of each town.

Schools and other government buildings are quickly turned into shelters, and each is assigned a doctor and sometimes a nurse. Volunteers check stocks of blankets, water and food. Forty-eight hours before an expected hit, residents are told to prepare to evacuate.

When the storm is a day away, volunteer civil-defense workers go door-to-door to ensure everyone gets out of harm's way. Government buses, cars and trucks transport evacuees to higher ground. Government shelters take in anyone who can't find a place to stay.

Of course, this is easier done in Cuba than in the United States because the communist government owns and controls most of the nation's resources. Unlike the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, it doesn't have to buy supplies or contract services from private companies, or pay overtime.

Most Cubans work for the government and don't have to worry about losing wages if they take off from work. And because police keep a close eye on evacuated areas — and because most Cubans have few possessions of value anyway — looting isn't a major concern.

Cubans are taught from an early age to move quickly in the event of a natural disaster and to follow authorities' instructions. So the government rarely has to force people to leave.

The only people for whom evacuations are mandatory are pregnant women and mothers with young children, who can be fined if they don't comply.

When Ike approached, Anay Estrada was reluctant to leave the single room she shares with six others. But as she is seven months pregnant, two police officers showed up at her door.

"I didn't want to leave my mother," Estrada said from a shelter at a maternity hospital, where she waited out the storm with her 7-year-old daughter, Melani. "But they came in a patrol car so I had to go."

In addition, special attention is paid to the elderly and handicapped — people who critics say U.S. authorities abandoned when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans three years ago. Several hundred elderly and handicapped people and their companions waited out Ike in an Old Havana convent, a white, bouganvilla-covered structure with an imposing bell tower.