Sources on the ground in Havana confirm a grim reality: the island’s crumbling electrical grid has turned high-rise buildings into vertical prisons. Residents of the 30-storey Focsa building, once a symbol of modernist ambition, now live in a state of perpetual alert. The blackouts aren’t random.
They follow a pattern of deliberate rationing, but the schedule is a lie. “They tell us the power will be back at 6pm, but it comes at 2am – or not at all,” a source told me. The uncertainty breeds a specific kind of terror.
In the stairwells, where the only light comes from a mobile phone screen, people carry buckets of water up 20 flights. The elderly don’t leave their apartments. The government’s official line blames US sanctions and fuel shortages.
Uncovered documents from state energy company UNE suggest a different story: mismanagement, deferred maintenance, and a system built on Soviet-era technology that was already failing before the economic crisis deepened. Internal memos, leaked to this reporter, show that repair crews are routinely sent to the wrong locations, and spare parts have been stockpiled in warehouses for months. The blackouts aren’t an accident.
They are the result of a system that has stopped trying. For the residents of these towers, each sunset brings a gamble. Will the lift work tomorrow?
Will the water pump function? Will the refrigerator keep the insulin cold? The answer, more often than not, is no.
And no one in a position of power is willing to take responsibility. The story is still breaking. But the pattern is clear: when the lights go out in Havana, the powerful remain in the dark only by choice.
