National Civil Defense Staff

The National Civil Defense Staff (Estado Mayor Nacional de la Defensa Civil) is the Cuban command authority responsible for coordinating responses to natural disasters, industrial accidents and complex emergencies. Established under the 1976 Constitution and now operating within the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), the Staff runs the country's hurricane preparedness system, large-scale evacuations and annual civil-defence drills under the Meteor exercise series.

On Saturday 16 May 2026, as part of Meteor 2026 within the wider "Year of Defence Preparation" posture, the Staff instructed households to assemble three-day food backpacks. The instruction landed three days after Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy publicly conceded the island was "out of fuel" during his 13 May press conference and two days after the partial disconnection of the Sistema Eléctrico Nacional from Ciego de Ávila through Guantánamo.

The Staff's standing reputation as Latin America's most-respected hurricane response institution, built over decades of low fatality counts despite limited resources, gives its instructions particular weight inside Cuba. The 16 May three-day backpack directive collided with material food scarcity: households dependent on daily ration purchases and refrigeration the grid cannot sustain face the directive against a backdrop of compound humanitarian stress. Independent observers treat the timing as crisis communication using the preparedness frame.