With the imminent threat of a hurricane, volcano, fire, or even before a nuclear risk, the factor that saves more lives is timely evacuation. This not only depends on the organizational capacity at the time of the disaster, but also appropriate social reaction. The social response to a mass evacuation is determined mainly by the level of trust between authorities and civil society. Reaching those levels requires an exercise of government that invests in both tangible factors (such as public policy, early warning systems and other resources) and in intangible attributes (e.g., social capital formation and civic training).

Under this premise, security and speed of the evacuations are developed by the proximity of a hurricane in Cuba -a country with limited economic resources-, worthy of a study that investigates the factors that contribute to non-tangible success of this process. Based on extensive documentary and by implementing individual and group interviews, this paper examines the Cuban citizen mobilizations produced by the potential impact of extreme hydro-meteorological event and the value of investment in social and cognitive capital in building relationships confidence at risk situations.