Some 240 electrical substations were put out of commission and 15,000 electrical poles were toppled or seriously damaged. Poles are supposed to withstand storm winds but must be maintained or replaced. Florida Power and Light has not carried out a systematic inspection of its towers and pole lines since 2001, according to state records.

Utility workers have been working to restore power—most rapidly to downtown office buildings and to hotels in Miami’s wealthy South Beach area. Working-class districts have not been a priority.

Patients have had to wait hours in packed hospital emergency rooms because many doctor’s offices remain closed. Six days after the storm, some dialysis centers had not reopened.

Many factories remained closed a week after the storm due to lack of power, leaving workers without income. Public schools remain closed.

For a week gasoline was in short supply because service stations lacked power to pump gas, and lines at pumps stretched for hours. Some workers had difficulty getting to their jobs because of the gas shortage.

Among those waiting hours in line for gas was Charles Willcoxson III, an electrician for 30 years and a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 212 in Cincinnati. He and a couple of co-workers had come to Miami to help out prior to the hurricane, and were trying to head home.

“You’d think they would be more prepared,” he told the Militant. “It’s more expensive to run electrical lines underground because of the heat factor, but they could do it. They could also build barriers around substations. Contractors charge the customer the same but pay nonunion workers less than union, and then pocket the difference.”

Farm worker communities were also hard hit. In rural Immokalee there was no immediate food or relief for the 40,000 residents. Some 100 poorly built trailer homes there were destroyed, and a worker was killed when winds destroyed the boarding house where she lived. Sugar cane cutters in Pahokee were left without work as fields were flattened.

In Florida the death toll from the hurricane is 21, including several killed from carbon monoxide poisoning during the power outages.

Florida governor John Ellis Bush sought to deflect criticism of the slow and inadequate government response by blaming people for being unable to obtain needed supplies. “People had ample time to prepare. It isn’t that hard to get 72 hours worth of food and water,” he said. For millions the power outages lasted much longer than 72 hours.

Part of the government response has been a curfew imposed in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

In contrast with the United States, in Cuba the revolutionary government and working people mobilized to save lives. Not a single death was reported as a result of Wilma. In face of heavy flooding, more than 640,000 people were evacuated. Thanks to prior arrangements, some 80 percent were safely housed with family and friends.

Cuba has simultaneously sent volunteer medical teams to Guatemala and to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, hard hit by the storm. Cuban volunteer doctors are also serving in Pakistan in the wake of the devastating earthquakes there. Some 20,000 Cuban medical personnel, including over 13,000 doctors, are serving in Venezuela too.  
 
 
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