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The Nowhere-To-Run Diaries: Hope In Puerto Rico Is Fading Fast

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico ― In the depths of the largest public housing project in the Caribbean, activist Antonio Látimer (aka “Puruco”) doesn’t know what more he can do.

“We’re running out of potable water. Out of food. We’ve got a lot of people sick with diarrhea. There’s conjunctivitis sprouts all over and no medicines. No one from the government has come to see us. They’ve left us alone,” Puruco, a former basketball star and now a community leader at the Luis Llorens Torres public housing complex in San Juan, said Thursday.

Despite his difficult situation, the ex-forward of Puerto Rico’s beloved national basketball team is lucky in some ways. He and his family live in the Puerto Rican capital. He has enough cellular signal to get his messages through. Outside of the metropolitan area, life is much harder.

Hurricane survivors receive food and water being distributed by volunteers and municipal police as they deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria on Thursday in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Joe Raedle via Getty Images)
Hurricane survivors receive food and water being distributed by volunteers and municipal police as they deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria on Thursday in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Joe Raedle via Getty Images)

It’s been a little over a week since Hurricane María battered Puerto Rico, bringing 150 mph winds and tens of inches of rain. Maria bore down on the archipelago mere days after it was hit by Hurricane Irma, killing at least 16 and leaving thousands without a home. Nearly half of the population is without drinking water. Some are without food. Lines for gasoline stretch miles and miles.

There’s barely any cellphone communication. Driving along the highways, people have stopped their cars wherever their phones receive the faintest signal. Social media outlets are filled with messages from people from the mainland searching for loved ones. Digital inboxes are full, but many bellies are empty. Hope, everywhere, seems to fade fast.

The center of the island is faring the worst.

“We have done some heavy cleaning of the roads but still haven’t been able to reach some barrios,” said Jaime Barlucea, the mayor of Adjuntas, a town in the central region of the island, during a rare appearance in San Juan on Wednesday.

“We took matters in our own hands since day one, because communication with the central government is really hard,” Barlucea said in a tired voice. “We’ve had landslides. We’re trying to reach those who have not been reached.”

Barlucea’s account echoes that of most mayors who have made their way to the Puerto Rico Convention Center, where the government has set up its headquarters and governor Ricardo Rossello’s Cabinet shows up all day long.

Mayor María “Mayita” Meléndez, from Ponce, on the south coast of the island, estimated damages in her city at $50 million. William “Willito” Miranda, the mayor of Caguas, in the mountains south of San Juan, has yet to survey all of the damage but says the town lost at least $20 million in infrastructure. Vega Baja, a northern surf town, “was almost under water for a couple days,” according to its mayor, Marcos Cruz Molina. The stories keep coming.

“It’s hectic. No gas. No electricity. And people are getting more and more desperate as days go by,” said Luis Manuel Arraiza, a 33-year-old publicist who lives in the barriada of Sandín, a usually tranquil beach spot in Vega Baja now filled with the noise of generators.

Arraiza thought of buying a generator himself to make his family more comfortable, but the generators run on diesel. “There’s none,” Arraiza noted. “There’s no gasoline, either.”

In downtown San Juan, any building with lights on is running a generator. There is no electric utility running on the island. (Photo: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In downtown San Juan, any building with lights on is running a generator. There is no electric utility running on the island. (Photo: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Like many Puerto Ricans, Arraiza has trouble making sense of it all. Puerto Rico’s infrastructure faced challenges long before this month’s twin natural disasters.

“It was already unsustainable; it was a terrible mess. Even if you had a modest windstorm, people would typically lose power for days at a time,” Judith Enck, the former EPA administrator for Region 2, which includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, told Wired.

After Hurricane Irma hit the island three weeks ago, the mediocre infrastructure of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) was shaken, but the utility managed to slowly get the system back up. This time, it seems Puerto Rico is gearing up for a very dark couple of months.

Problems are a dime a dozen here in paradise lost.

There’s what many believe to be governmental ineptitude ― local and federal ― or, simply put, apathy. “I find it very hard to understand what is going on here,” Florida state Rep. René Plasencia (R) told HuffPost on Wednesday. “It’s a political issue. I don’t know where, but it’s a political issue somewhere.”

Plasencia arrived in Puerto Rico earlier this week with 400,000 pounds of food, water and other essentials collected in central Florida by the Boricua diaspora, other communities and the private sector.

Plasencia’s mother is Puerto Rican. His wife’s 90-year-old grandfather is from the city of Bayamón. If there was a time when he thought he could be useful to his bloodline, it was now.

But the state legislator was troubled by how hard it had been to get all that aid to the island as it suffered its worst crisis in a century.

“This is a U.S. territory. Every single person is an American citizen. When an American citizen is in need, all Americans should be supportive,” he said with a sigh.

More storm clouds move in after Hurricane Maria in Loiza, Puerto Rico. (Photo: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images)
More storm clouds move in after Hurricane Maria in Loiza, Puerto Rico. (Photo: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images)

With cameras flashing all over the place, Puerto Rico has had no shortage of dignitary visits. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) came to the island mere days after the disaster. But Plasencia said there’s a big difference between showing face and getting stuff done. He had reached out to Rubio with some ideas and had contacted FEMA, but he never got concrete answers. Yet something has to be done, the lawmaker said.

Plasencia recognized that Puerto Rico’s debt-ridden status, its colonial history and the shipping restrictions of the Jones Act all played a part in the catastrophe. On Thursday, finally, the White House temporarily waived the 97-year-old statute that allows only U.S.-flagged vessels to transport goods between Puerto Rico and the mainland United States.

President Donald Trump is set to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday. It’s far from clear what state he will find the island in.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article referred to Marco Rubio as a congressman. He is a senator.

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Maria Lopez cries while walking from her house that was flooded after the passage of Hurricane Maria, in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, on September 22, 2017. Puerto Rico battled dangerous floods Friday after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, as rescuers raced against time to reach residents trapped in their homes and the death toll climbed to 33. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello called Maria the most devastating storm in a century after it destroyed the US territory's electricity and telecommunications infrastructure.  / AFP PHOTO / HECTOR RETAMAL        (Photo credit should read HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images)
Loiza, PUERTO RICO  SEPTEMBER 22: Aerial photo of the floadings in the costal town of Loiza, in the north shore of Puerto RicoHurricane Maria passed through Puerto Rico leaving behind a path of destruction across the national territory. (Photo by Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Loiza, PUERTO RICO SEPTEMBER 22: Aerial photo of the floadings in the costal town of Loiza, in the north shore of Puerto RicoHurricane Maria passed through Puerto Rico leaving behind a path of destruction across the national territory. (Photo by Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
HAYALES DE COAMO, PUERTO RICO - SEPTEMBER 24:  Karlian Mercado, 7, rests on the rubble that remains of her family's home after it was blown away by Hurricane Maria as it passed through the area on September 24, 2017 in Hayales de Coamo, Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico experienced widespread damage after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane, passed through.  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Irma Torres poses for a picture at her damaged house after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Irma Torres poses for a picture at her damaged house after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Local residents react while they look at the water flowing over the road at the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Local residents react while they look at the water flowing over the road at the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
A man looks at damages on his flooded house, close to the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
A man looks at damages on his flooded house, close to the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
A man sits in a wheelchair next to washing machines at a shelter after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria, in San Juan, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. Picture taken September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez
A man sits in a wheelchair next to washing machines at a shelter after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria, in San Juan, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. Picture taken September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez
LOIZA, PUERTO RICO - SEPTEMBER 22: A resident wades through flood water days after Hurricane Maria made landfall,  on September 22, 2017 in Loiza, Puerto Rico. Many on the island have lost power, running water, and cell phone service after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane, passed through. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
LOIZA, PUERTO RICO - SEPTEMBER 22: A resident wades through flood water days after Hurricane Maria made landfall, on September 22, 2017 in Loiza, Puerto Rico. Many on the island have lost power, running water, and cell phone service after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane, passed through. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
People stay at the roof of a damaged house after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO - SEPTEMBER 22: Residents line up for gasoline days after Hurricane Maria made landfall, on September 22, 2017 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Many on the island have lost power, running water, and cell phone service after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane, passed through. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO - SEPTEMBER 22: Residents line up for gasoline days after Hurricane Maria made landfall, on September 22, 2017 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Many on the island have lost power, running water, and cell phone service after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane, passed through. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)
A car submerged in flood waters is seen close to the dam of the Guajataca lake after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria in Guajataca, Puerto Rico September 23, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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People stop on a highway near a mobile phone antenna tower to check for mobile phone signal, after the area was hit by Hurricane Maria, in Dorado, Puerto Rico September 22, 2017. Picture taken September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Alvin Baez
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An aerial view shows the flooded neighbourhood of Juana Matos in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Catano, Puerto Rico, on September 22, 2017. Puerto Rico battled dangerous floods Friday after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, as rescuers raced against time to reach residents trapped in their homes and the death toll climbed to 33. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello called Maria the most devastating storm in a century after it destroyed the US territory's electricity and telecommunications infrastructure.  / AFP PHOTO / Ricardo ARDUENGO        (Photo credit should read RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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