“It has upended the lives of 3.4 million people. It has cut off entire towns from each other. It has left residents without water to drink or bathe in. Enough aid has not come for many. The gravity of the recovery time is starting to set in”. Leyla Santiago, CNN
It’s important to many of us to keep the dire situation Puerto Rico in the news. That it has taken a few notches down since the storm is not surprising with a chaos regime, but we all know the situation has barely improved since Hurricane Maria barreled over the island a month ago. News does continue to trickle out and it all points to a humanitarian crisis looming for the millions of Americans that live there. Please see Donation links at the bottom, if you are able to help or continue to help.
And please, use this diary as on open thread on PR. Tweets, videos, thoughts, sadness, fear most welcome. We all are feeling a range of emotions and so much frustration.
Milton Carrero Galarza writes for the Los Angeles Times, the excerpts below are just a sample in the riveting piece titled “Foraging for food, water and hope: Puerto Ricans cope with lingering devastation of Hurricane Maria”.
Food, water, medicine, electricity and shelter all remain desperately scarce on the island. The hurricane wiped out thousands of homes, decimated agriculture and cut power and phone lines, making it difficult for most of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents to communicate with family or aid services.
Some roads in mountainous regions contort and contract with mudslides that expose precipices on each side. In some cases, people have been left isolated by collapsed bridges in communities that already were off the beaten path.
The number of deaths associated with the hurricane rose to at least 49, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Friday, and that number was expected to go up again. Officials said dozens of people are still missing.
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“For everybody who hears we are OK, that means we are alive. But there has not been a day when I have not come home crying because I am thinking of a mother who came to me saying that we have no food,” she said.
Quiñones said she feels hopeful when she sees members of her community working to rebuild neighborhoods with their own hands. She has a child with special needs who has taken to working on their vegetable garden, which they replanted days after the storm hit.
Marinilda Rivera Diaz, a social worker in Rio Piedras, is part of an interdisciplinary team of professionals working at one of the “Stop and Go” centers, a government initiative where residents go for food, medical care and help filling out paperwork for federal aid.
“I am worried about the people who have bedridden family members living in their homes who depend on a respirator,” she said. “Can you imagine what it is like to need to breathe and not have oxygen?”
Among those recently at the Jose Celso Barbosa school where Rivera Diaz works was Roberto Bonilla, who sought physical and emotional care. He was grateful for the warm plate of food he received.
“I am 60 years old, and I need food,” he said, kissing the plate.
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