‘Irma gave us a break, but Maria destroyed us’
Hurricane leaves Puerto Rico with ‘historic’ devastation and a total power outage
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO— The sky was darkening Thursday afternoon as10year-old Sarah Jimenez laid out three plastic buckets on her grandmother’s patio in hopes of capturing rainwater.
“We can use it to at least flush the toilets,” she told her grandmother.
A day after hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, flooding towns, crushing homes and killing at least two people, millions of people on the island faced the dispiriting prospect of weeks and perhaps months without electricity.
The storm knocked out the entire grid across the U.S. territory of 3.4 million, leaving many without power to light their homes, cook, pump water or run fans, air conditioners or refrigerators.
As a result, Sarah and others hunted for gas canisters for cooking, collected rainwater or prepared themselves mentally for the hardships to come in the tropical heat. Some contemplated leaving the island.
“You cannot live here without power,” said Hector Llanos, a 78-year-old retired New York police officer who planned to go back to the U.S. mainland on Saturday to live there temporarily.
Like many Puerto Ricans, Llanos does not have a generator or gas stove. “The only thing I have is a flashlight,” he said, shaking his head. “This is never going to return to normal.”
Maria’s death toll across the Caribbean, meanwhile, climbed to at least 19, nearly all of them on the hard-hit island of Dominica. In Puerto Rico, the government said at least two were killed but media on the island were reporting additional deaths and the actual toll appeared unlikely to be known for days.
“Irma gave us a break, but Maria destroyed us,” said Edwin Serrano, a construction worker in Old San Juan.
As of Thursday evening, Maria was moving off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic with winds of 195 km/h. The storm was expected to approach the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas late Thursday and early Friday. From there, it is expected to veer into the open Atlantic, no threat to the U.S. mainland.
In Puerto Rico, the grid was in sorry shape long before Maria — and hurricane Irma two weeks ago — struck.
The territory’s $73 billion (U.S.) debt crisis has left agencies like the state power company broke. It abandoned most basic maintenance in recent years, leaving the island subject to regular blackouts.
“We knew this was going to happen given the vulnerable infrastructure,” Gov. Ricardo Rossello said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would open an air bridge from the mainland on Friday, with three to four military planes flying to the island every day carrying water, food, generators and temporary shelters.
“There’s a humanitarian emergency here in Puerto Rico,” Rossello said. “This is an event without precedent.”
He said his administration was trying to open ports soon to receive shipments of food, water, generators, cots and other supplies.
The government has hired 56 small contractors to clear trees and put up new power lines and poles and will be sending tanker trucks to supply neighbourhoods as they run out of water. The entire island has been declared a federal disaster zone.
Sarah’s grandmother, Maribel Montilla, already had two large barrels filled with water but worried about how long it would last for her, her daughter, her son-in-law and six grandchildren.
“You know what I think? We’re going to be without power for six months now,” she said.
Cellphone and internet service col- lapsed in much of Puerto Rico. The only radio station that remained on the air during the hurricane — WAPA 680 AM — was relaying messages to help connect friends and families.
Pedro Cartagena, a 57-year-old dock supervisor, said he planned to shower, eat and sleep at his company’s office. He has no gas stove and will buy food at the few restaurants that are open.
“That’s going to drain my bank account,” he said, “but if I want to eat, that’s my only option.”
In an upscale neighbourhood in San Juan, 69-year-old retiree Annie Mattei’s condominium has a generator. But she said maintenance will shut it off between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to save fuel.
“This has been devastating,” she said as her eyes welled with tears.
In the Dominican Republican, Maria knocked down trees and power lines. But Joel Santos, president of the country’s hotel association, said the hurricane did not damage the tourism infrastructure, even though it passed close to Punta Cana, the major resort area on the eastern tip of the island.
In Dominica, where Maria laid waste to hundreds of homes and was blamed for at least 15 deaths, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit wept as he spoke to a reporter on the nearby island of Antigua.
“It is a miracle there were not hundreds of deaths,” he said.