what is the current status of puerto rico due to hurricane maria

In Utuado, Puerto Rico, construction work is still going on to replace a bridge destroyed in Hurricane Maria. Greg Allen/NPR hide explanation

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In Utuado, Puerto Rico, construction work is still going on to supplant a bridge destroyed in Hurricane Maria.

Greg Allen/NPR

Nigh two years later on Hurricane Maria, the town of Utuado is finally getting a new bridge over the Viví River to supplant the old concrete and steel one that was heavily damaged during the storm and has been closed ever since.

"This is the main road in and out of town," Héctor Cruz says, as a coiffure uses a crane and other heavy equipment to construct the new bridge. Cruz is the director of emergency management in Utuado, a community in the highlands of primal Puerto Rico.

After the tempest, massive landslides and downed copse blocked mountain roads, cutting the town off from the remainder of the isle for weeks. Many residents take not rebuilt their homes, and many roofs are still covered with blue tarps. If a hurricane hits Puerto Rico this season, it would be a huge setback, Cruz says. "Nosotros will have even more washed out roads, less access," he says. "We'll take the same level of destruction, and next time the problems will be even worse because many things have non been addressed however."

Rebuilding is going slowly all over the isle. Congress has allocated some $twenty billion to rebuild houses and infrastructure, merely while planning is going forward, very niggling of that money has been disbursed.

Since Hurricane Maria, social workers in Utuado have gone firm-to-house, mapping their communities in order to know where the most vulnerable populations alive. In the event of another big tempest, those residents can be helped first. Greg Allen/NPR hide caption

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Since Hurricane Maria, social workers in Utuado take gone business firm-to-house, mapping their communities in society to know where the most vulnerable populations live. In the event of another big tempest, those residents can exist helped first.

Greg Allen/NPR

And information technology is hurricane season over again. So many residents and communities across the island are getting ready past repairing buildings and homes, converting to solar free energy, banding together and doing most of that without a lot of government help.

"What happened in Maria can happen again," says the director of Puerto Rico's Bureau of Emergency Management, Carlos Acevedo. But Acevedo says Puerto Rico is much better prepared than it was two years ago.

The isle at present has a detailed disaster response plan — something information technology didn't take when Maria striking. "I feel proud of what we've washed in Puerto Rico," Acevedo says. "I trust that the authorities response in Puerto Rico to a hurricane would be very different this season from Maria'southward. We have much more than information, much better logistics."

Acevedo says his agency has placed warehouses around the isle stocked with emergency provisions. At that place's a plan for delivering fuel and agreements with utility companies on the mainland to respond quickly to restore ability later a disaster. Another major comeback is advice. All of the island's 78 municipalities now have satellite phones and radios to ensure they won't lose contact with the outside world every bit they did during Hurricane Maria.

But for many, the main concern is the country of people's homes. A Federal Emergency Management Agency assessment found about every edifice in Puerto Rico was damaged by the storm, and many say their houses are not safe to shelter in.

Architect Astrid Díaz (left) talks with Toaville community leader Yarilin Colón well-nigh damaged homes in the community. Greg Allen/NPR hide caption

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Architect Astrid Díaz (left) talks with Toaville community leader Yarilin Colón nearly damaged homes in the community.

Greg Allen/NPR

"Now we have more than than a half-1000000 people affected, and we take to build at a minimum 75,000 homes," says Astrid Díaz, an architect who was part of a FEMA team that assessed the island'due south infrastructure. "That challenge is very large."

Few communities were hitting harder during the storm than Toa Baja, a town just westward of San Juan, the island's capital metropolis. After torrential rains during Maria, the government opened the gates of a nearby dam, causing all-encompassing flooding in the area.

Yarilin Colón is the president of Toaville, a neighborhood in Toa Baja. She says about a third of the homes in her neighborhood are abandoned. "I worry about that considering they bring in vandalism. At that place are 2 abandoned homes across the street from my house, and I don't feel safe," she says.

Colón'south house lost its roof. Before Maria, she made her money every bit a seamstress, but the studio on the first flooring of her house was destroyed. Because she and her husband take a mortgage to pay, she says they have no pick but to stay. She has organized her community to rebuild and set for the side by side hurricane. "It would be good to get help from the government," she says. "But we are non waiting for the government hither. Nosotros are helping ourselves."

Marilian Vázquez, a resident of Toaville, says she is nonetheless reeling from the storm. Her home was heavily damaged and her husband's ice foam truck was destroyed. Greg Allen/NPR hibernate caption

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Marilian Vázquez, a resident of Toaville, says she is still reeling from the storm. Her home was heavily damaged and her husband's ice cream truck was destroyed.

Greg Allen/NPR

Marilian Vázquez, who lives close past, is still reeling from the storm, too. Her home was heavily damaged and her husband's ice cream truck was destroyed. He savage into a deep depression, she says, and hasn't worked since.

"We oasis't seen anything washed in Toaville to make us feel safer," she says, equally tears ringlet down her cheeks. "The authorities haven't done anything to ameliorate channel the river h2o period. We haven't seen whatever cleanup of the drain organisation. I don't feel safe."

Her sons and in-laws live in the neighborhood, and she says that's what leaves her conflicted nearly the damaged area. "I'd like to motility," she says, "though Toaville is a very nice place. It'south peaceful, we are a close-knit community. I have great neighbors. ... It'southward non easy."

Astrid Díaz, the builder who works to build resilient homes and communities, says that is something she hears a lot, even from people who live in unsafe areas. "The tradition in Puerto Rico is that generation after generation ... want to live in the same neighborhood," she says. "It's very difficult to attempt to relocate them." The challenge she says is to brainwash people in places like Toaville that they'll be better off in a neighborhood that is not prone to flooding.

Communities like Toa Baja, and others where residents have plant little help from the authorities, are taking steps on their own to go more resilient and able to respond to disasters.

Volunteers at a retirement eye in Rio Piedras take part in training to aid them recognize and cope with stress and depression that's all the same a problem ii years after Hurricane Maria. Marisa Peñaloza/NPR hide caption

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Volunteers at a retirement heart in Rio Piedras take part in training to help them recognize and cope with stress and depression that's still a problem 2 years after Hurricane Maria.

Marisa Peñaloza/NPR

About an hour's drive southwest of Toa Baja, up narrow winding roads, at that place is Mameyes, a minor mountain community. Since the storm, residents take opened a wellness clinic with help from foundations and charities. It is completely powered by solar panels, so as not to exist reliant on the island'south free energy infrastructure in the event of some other major storm.

The clinic serves 7 rural communities, where many elderly people alive who need lots of medical care. Before Maria, people had to travel an 60 minutes or more for health care, fifty-fifty for pocket-sized issues. The storm made health care fifty-fifty more disquisitional, but Noelia Rivera, a 27-year-former nurse, says it took weeks for outside assist to arrive. In her native Spanish, she says, "All the roads were impassable. They were done out or covered with dirt. The route to Jayuya, to Utuado, to Arecibo, to Manatí, information technology was all blocked off. We had to clean out all the landslides. The customs came together, but it was a huge chore."

Noelia Rivera (left), a 27-year-old nurse, provides medical help in seven rural communities where many elderly people alive. Pablo Méndez (right), an associate professor of environmental health at the University of Puerto Rico, gives guidance for the Eye of Mutual Support in Las Carolinas. Greg Allen/NPR hide explanation

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Greg Allen/NPR

Residents here believe the wellness dispensary will help make Mameyes self-sufficient and meliorate able to respond in futurity disasters.

The customs in Las Carolinas, a working-grade neighborhood in Caguas, is trying to do the same. Here, volunteers cook and serve meals to be delivered effectually the neighborhood to disabled and elderly residents.

Mariseli O'Neill Fontana, a 19-year-old volunteer, stirs a big casserole of stewed beans. Afterward the storm, with no power, damaged homes and supplies running depression, O'Neill says people needed help. "Many lost their home," she says. "They couldn't afford to eat hot meals or even merely purchase food." And for many residents, that'due south still the instance.

The group, called Middle of Common Support, is staffed by volunteers who live in the neighborhood. Later on Maria, they opened the kitchen in an abandoned simple schoolhouse. Now 1 of the grouping's board members, Miguel Angel Rosario, says they're negotiating with the government to get the human activity to the belongings. "Our programme is to power information technology on solar," he says. "Nosotros want to install solar panels here, especially in the kitchen, and so we tin continue to provide services to the customs" in the event of another big storm.

The group in Las Carolinas has had help — funding from foundations and charities and guidance from Pablo Méndez, an associate professor of environmental health at the University of Puerto Rico. Méndez says that similar Mameyes and Las Carolinas, "Some communities are rising up and non waiting for the support from the authorities. And they now accept more conviction in making their ain decisions."

Mariseli O'Neill Fontana (right) and other volunteers serve food three times a calendar week in Las Carolinas, a neighborhood in Caguas. Marisa Peñaloza/NPR hide caption

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Mariseli O'Neill Fontana (right) and other volunteers serve food iii times a week in Las Carolinas, a neighborhood in Caguas.

Marisa Peñaloza/NPR

Méndez has been working with 11 communities in Puerto Rico to assistance them identify their needs and take steps to go more than resilient and cocky-sufficient. These are communities, he says, that have long felt ignored by the authorities — underserved areas that were hurting before the hurricane. They include "a lot of people that are living beneath the poverty level, people who are on unemployment, that don't have health insurance. What the hurricane did was to unveil some of the reality of how Puerto Ricans were living," he says.

As for Utuado, the small metropolis up in the primal mountain region of the isle, things look much better than they did correct after the storm. People are out in the town's foursquare; stores are open; and the U.S., Puerto Rico and Utuado flags fly outside the colonial-era city hall. Simply the boondocks'south mayor, 36-year-old Ernesto Irizarry, says: "Nosotros will never exist fully prepared for a hurricane." Utuado is smaller since the tempest after losing about 10% of its population. Some schools take airtight, just Irizarry says people are returning.

"Yeah, we can be stronger," he says. "The important matter here is personal readiness — that you and your family are ready to survive for three weeks or a month without authorities aid."

The Puerto Rico flag flies on the beach in Condado, a neighborhood of San Juan. Marisa Peñaloza/NPR hibernate caption

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Marisa Peñaloza/NPR

The Puerto Rico flag flies on the beach in Condado, a neighborhood of San Juan.

Marisa Peñaloza/NPR

For people in Puerto Rico, two years afterward Hurricane Maria, that may be the storm's most important message. Beingness prepared means not being dependent on that government assistance.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/737001701/i-don-t-feel-safe-puerto-rico-preps-for-another-maria-without-enough-government

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