Rescuers used row boats and makeshift rafts, including inner tubes, to ferry stranded residents to higher ground as water levels rose.
Parts of the 7-km wall were hidden under the sea.
“I’ve never seen the sea come in so far, not even in the storm of the century (in 1993), and it is still rising,” said Edith Valdez, a 44-year resident of Central Havana.
In the Vedado district, known for its Art Deco buildings, sea water penetrated four blocks inland in some parts, flooding basements of buildings and hotels. Residents waded to safety through waist-high waters carrying a few belongings.
The deepest floods were around the Riviera Hotel, build by Mafia boss Meyer Lansky before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution ousted U.S. mobsters and shut down their casinos and brothels.
“I’ve lost everything,” said a barefooted Juan Villar Cuevas, 41, who lived in a basement apartment.
“It’s amazing, the streets have turned into big canals,” said Olga Livia Martinez, hugging her boy-friend.
Wilma spared Cuba a direct hit after devastating Mexico’s Mayan Riviera tourist resorts, but wind gusts of 138kph ripped through Havana, knocking down lampposts and stripping branches off trees.
Water began crashing over the sea wall after midnight, quickly turning streets into rivers.
Firemen, including divers in wetsuits, used motorboats to carry residents to safety. Some evacuees feared their belongings would be stolen.
Havana had no power — authorities cut supplies before the storm on Sunday to prevent electrical accidents. Streets were strewn with branches and leaves.
The sea surges forced the evacuation of the low-lying coastal village of Santa Fe, south of the capital, residents said.
Havana inhabitants debated whether the flooding was worse that the so-called “storm of the century” when winds from the north caused surge flooding in Vedado.
“It’s the worst flooding I recall, twice as bad as 1993, and may continue until dawn,” said Orestes Dominguez, resident of Havana’s leafy Miramar district, where the sea advanced a full block inland.
Cuban weather experts said seas would subside by late afternoon. —Reuters