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Hurricane Wilma blogEditor's note: The Hurricane Wilma blog is compiled by CNN reporters and producers covering the storm. Facing Wilma's wrath in CubaBLOG ARCHIVESPECIAL REPORT
• Interactive: Safety Tips
• Flash: How hurricanes form
• Gallery: Saffir-Simpson scale
• I-Report: Send us your stories
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSTuesday, October 25; Posted 12:43 p.m. ET People in Havana, including me, had pretty much decided the worst was over after Hurricane Wilma dumped just a little rain on the capital and then headed off to Florida without even touching Cuban shores. So, after days of working around the clock reporting on hurricane preparations and looking for possible damage on Sunday in Pinar del Rio Province, my cameraman, Jose Armijo, and I went home around midnight, eager to get to bed. Less than two hours later I was awoken by a frantic phone call from a Spanish colleague who lives in my same neighborhood, called Miramar (translation: Seaview). (Watch Lucia Newman's report on flooding in Cuba -- 1:54) "The water is coming up to the door. The streets are flooding fast and I need to get out before it becomes impassable," she said. What a wake-up call! I ran down the street to discover that sea water had penetrated all the way up to Fifth Avenue, a good kilometer inland. I called Jose. "Quick, wake up, the water must be at your door. You live only a few blocks from the sea." Back at the job again, we were shocked at what we saw: The city was pitch black, but the camera light clearly showed the streets were turning into rivers of salt water. The Vedado neighborhood, about five miles away in Midtown, was much worse. When daylight broke, we could not believe our eyes. The flooding was massive, in some places chest high. In all my years in Cuba covering scores of hurricanes and tropical storms, I had never seen waves on the famous Malecon seaside drive rising into the air with such fury. In a country where everything usually takes forever, Cuba's Civil Defense and Emergency services got to work faster than lightning to rescue people. Anything that floated -- rowboats, barges and even a Soviet made armored amphibious vessel used by the Cuban army during the war in Angola -- was used to get people trapped in flooded homes to safety. Fortunately no one was killed, officials said. All the hurricane experience you think you have doesn't seem to prepare you for a surprise like this. 
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