Situation in the city during and after of the pass of the hurricane.
Very serious was the situation of Matanzas and the entire jurisdiction after the disaster.
Taking advantage of the confusion and the terror of the citizens during the pass of the hurricane, a group of malefactors dedicated to the looting of objects of value in abandoned housings and stores. Assaults also took place to the victims that escaped or refugees in solitary or isolated places.
For this cause, a total of 20 individuals were arrested and driven immediately to the tribunals, for crimes made during or after the catastrophe (Anonymous, 1870b). as a result, summary trials were carried out that condemned to death ...two white (former convicts) and to a black one (ibidem) that were apprehended while they subtracted money and objects at several homes: The malefactors were shot at once.
It was also known of the opportunist and lucrative attitude of some merchants and proprietors that decided to rise the prices of some articles arbitrarily, in the face of the possibility that was offered to them by the state of general shortage. On this, the Aurora del Yumurí pointed out:
Some establishments of Pueblo Nuevo and Versalles, without keeping in mind humanity's laws and those dictated lately by the local Authority, they have risen the prices of the provision, mainly those of first necessity, arriving to the end of charging a Real for a cookie... (ibidem).
After the catastrophe, and in the face of the critical situation at the city of Matanzas, the Political Governor of the Jurisdiction, Juan Burriel and Lynch, emitted three Decrees that regulated the order and the status of the city while the emergency lasted. It is important to remember that for that date it was already two years since the beginning of the War of the Ten Years, and the East of Cuba was in full convulsion as a consequence of the insurrection. For it, the colonial authorities were authorized to take energetic measures according to the case, among them, of course, the control of weapons.
To assure the enforcement of the law and order in the whole region, the Governor had a troop composed by 800-armed Volunteers and a squadron of 500 Volunteers of Militias. Also, a brigade of Watchmen of neighborhoods existed and another integrated by the Municipal Police and the Rural Police, formed by 69 troops. Additionally, a Body of Firemen existed with 600 men for the whole Jurisdiction (Márquez, 1926).
But this force was not enough; and besides, orders could not be transmitted with due speed, as consequence of the isolation of the city from other towns. In view of this, governor Burriel organized with urgent character an armed force integrated by citizens' of the greater confidence, to whose attention the three fundamental tasks were: ...Attend the families in most need, watch (sic) that outrages and abuses are not made; and clean the City of damaged effects and other garbage that, exposed to the sunbeams could be cause of a general epidemic... (Anonymous, 1870a). This paramilitary force was directed by appointed regidores for each one of the six neighborhoods of the city of Matanzas, such as it appears in the Decrees emitted those days (Robado, 1933).
It would not be fair to conclude without making mention of the contributions in money and in goods that many matanceros, both Cubans and Spaniards, delivered to the authorities and the Church, showing their solidarity with those damaged; as well as of other so many acts of value, sometimes heroic that contributed to save countless lives during the pass of the hurricane.
On Saturday the 8th, the Governor edited a message directed to the General Captain of the Island, giving notice of the extraordinary disaster occurred in Matanzas.