Por Iris Quintero Zulueta 
Nine decades ago, on the first of September, the force of the winds of the hurricane of 1933 made it landfall in the founding square of Cárdenas.
Since then it has remained there, out in the open, as a witness of time and an indelible mark of the fury caused by nature.
After a meticulous restoration process, with which barely 35% of its originality could be saved, the Cristóbal Colón park buoy returned to its place a few meters from the statue of the Admiral.
The will of the local government to preserve the material and built heritage in the historic urban center of Ciudad Bandera, made it possible to return the buoy, emblematic for Cardenenses, to this location.
A group of self-employed workers associated with the José Valdés Reyes Industrial Railway Company restored the steel and cast iron structure, replacing some elements with current materials that reproduce its original shape.
For the assembly, a natural edge and a metal structure that separates it from the surface and prevents corrosion due to water accumulation were used on the base.
The bronze plaque, also restored for this purpose, indicates the exact height that the water reached as a result of the coastal penetrations, 1 meter and 20 centimeters from the original paving stones of the founding square.
As part of the conservation process undertaken in the heritage city of Cárdenas, the rescue of sites and elements of the architectural framework continues. (ALH)
Translated by Casterman Medina de Leon