Hurricane Maria
Islands Ignored
Puerto Rico
Relief Fund for Hurricane Victims
US Citizens Deserve Better
The Work Here is FAR From Done: Moxie's Take on the Hurricane Damage in Puerto Rico
2/06/2018An iguana catches some rays on the deck of a wrecked boat. This wreck was one of many dozens we saw in Salinas. |
Artists painted the hulls of wrecked boats on the beach at Boqueron, PR |
Hud removes cleats from a beached sailboat to re-purpose them as tie-ups on the town dock in Boqueron |
A new dock cleat installed by the Moxie crew, as seen through Sadie's legs |
The beautiful lighthouse at Cabo Rojo |
We call this MOOG POWER |
Iguanas are EVERYWHERE in Puerto Rico! |
Preparing to take the plunge at Gilligan's Island |
A sweet local guy let us borrow his sunfish one day. "Harden it up, let's boogie!",was Trav's rad quote of the day. |
Viv at the helm |
Outside the historic fire station in Ponce |
The Moxie crew fell in love with Rincon! We surfed twice at Playa de Maria |
Viv has gotten better and better at surfing. Here she is, tearing it up at Rincon. |
About to ride...see Dad in the back :) |
Hud catches a beauty at Rincon |
Celebrating my 44th birthday in Ponce. (Note two of my gifts: chocolate covered cherries and good conditioner-- Major luxuries for this sailor girl) |
Hud catches air at the skatepark in Ponce on his 11th birthday. |
I love my sweet boy!!! |
Moxie anchored at Caja de Muertes (Coffin Island) |
Salinas is a huge cruising port and hurricane hole, but it was no match for Maria. The damage here was intense. |
Viv ponders the destruction on our tour of the Salinas harbor |
This barge is moving up the coastline of Puerto Rico, pulling sunken and wrecked boats from harbors with its giant crane. |
A former sailboat shop in Salinas |
Everywhere you look, destroyed homes and businesses |
Swingin' in Salinas |
Puerto Rican Power |
Here's Hud on his board at the gorgeous surf beach, Inches, near Patillas |
Hud paddles out |
Trav and I raise our kids to be best friends, and best friends they are |
Hitching back to the boat after surfing, Trav offers a cold beer as an incentive to anyone driving a truck. What a gang of ragamuffins! Would you pick us up? |
Buddies |
Palm walking at Palmas del Mar |
Golf cart thugs are the most dangerous kind |
The damage to the vegetation is pretty severe, especially to the poor palm trees |
No explanation necessary |
The throbbing hum of generators is the
ever-present soundtrack to much of Puerto Rico these days. Rumbling and shaking behind small shops and
restaurants, the generators provide a constant, often deafening roar, and
people strain to hear and to be heard.
But shouting over the noise of machinery is just part of the Puerto
Ricans’ struggle to have a voice. Four
months after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, the stories of that terrifying
storm pour out of the locals as if released from broken dams.
“I lived with my Mom and my little
sister up in the hills above Ponce. My
Mom had just finished making a garden in the backyard,” the young guy at TJ Maxx told me as he rang up my purchases. “But Maria blew the roof off our
house.” He smiled with sad eyes. “Now we
live with relatives.”
A girl at the little store in
Boqueron told us about what it was like living without power in the hottest
days of a Caribbean summer. “There was no air conditioning and no fans. If you went outside to cool off, the bugs
were terrible. And you couldn’t sleep at
night, it was so hot. We would run the generator for a few hours every day and
I would freeze a water bottle to take to bed with me at night. That was how I would try to stay cool so I
could sleep.”
The guy from the rental car place
had tears in his eyes as he described the night Maria hit, how he and his
neighbors huddled in the 9th floor hallway of their 16 story
apartment highrise for 10 hours and felt the concrete building move and sway,
felt the wind rush through the halls, heard the glass shattering through the
walls all around them. “My father, my
uncles, and my brothers all served in the military. I always ask the question, if Puerto Ricans
can serve in the US military, then how come we can’t vote for the President?”
A dad we met on the beach on the
tiny island of Vieques told us how his wife and seven year old daughter were
visiting relatives in the US during the hurricane. “There was no cell service, no internet, no
phones at all,” he explained, “So for three weeks, I had no way to get in touch
with them.” Can you imagine what that must have been like for that family? Three weeks without communication. THREE WEEKS without knowing if their house
was still standing, not knowing if their husband/dad was even alive.
The irony of Maria’s devastating
effect on Puerto Rico is something out of “The Gift of the Magi”. When Hurricane Irma hit in early September,
it missed Puerto Rico, but ravaged the nearby USVIs, BVIs, and St. Maarten. The Puerto Ricans responded by assembling a
massive relief effort, gathering huge quantities of supplies including
generators, blue tarps, chainsaws, and bottled water and shipping it all to
their neighbors in need. Less than two
weeks later, Maria came, and Puerto Rico found itself up a creek without a
paddle. They had given away most of the supplies they now desperately needed.
Throughout Puerto Rico, and
especially on the eastern end where the hurricane first hit, the damage still
overwhelms the peoples’ ability to fix it.
Everywhere you look, things are broken.
Giant store signs lie shattered in parking lots. Electricity poles remain snapped in half like
matchsticks. At most intersections in
busy cities like San Juan and Ponce, the broken traffic lights hang precariously,
bobbing and swaying on loose, stretched-out wires. The cars and trucks below weave through
without guidance, drivers waving each other through, often putting pedal to the
metal and gunning it to make sure they get their turn. For the first few months after Maria, the
police officers directed the traffic in 12 hour shifts, standing at
intersections in the brutal heat and taking bathroom breaks in bushes. If someone called in sick, their shifts would
double to 24 hours. Not only were these
police officers never paid for their overtime, after a while their paychecks
started to bounce. Eventually they stopped coming to work and the intersections
went unmanned. Now, occasionally, you’ll
see the traffic being directed by an entrepreneurial guy in an orange vest,
waving on the cars with gusto, energetically working for tips.
Much of the island still has no power. A few places still
have no water. Some public schools have
not yet reopened. And everywhere,
skeletons of the little places, the colorful beach shacks and shops and
watering holes that gave this place much of its character now sit in heaps of
splintered wood and twisted metal.
But the outlook here isn’t as bleak as you might imagine. If anything, the struggle of the storm has
been a powerful reminder to Puerto Ricans of their resilience, ingenuity,
community minded-ness, and resolve. A
surf photographer named Justin we met in Rincon told us about the initial weeks
after the storm, how he and his friends cleared roads with chainsaws, often
taking an entire day to remove one tree.
But here comes the best story of all, the one that absolutely blew me
away: Justin described how he and his neighbors, after two months without power,
banded together and took matters into their own hands. Led by the one guy in the neighborhood who
had some previous experience with powerlines, Justin and his buddies spent a
week digging a hole, replacing the fallen electricity pole, and putting the
lines back into place. They succeeded in
restoring power to their neighborhood. “It
was amazing, so amazing, that feeling,” Justin told me, and he blinked back
tears. He apologized for becoming emotional.
“I’m sorry for tearing up, but when I think about it, it’s like I’m
living it all over again.”
A sweet guy named William gave us a ride to the surf beach at
Inches. I asked him if the storm had
been hard on his community, and his response surprised me. “Actually, I think
the hurricane was the best thing that could have happened to Puerto Rico,” he said.
“I work at Kmart, and the first things we sold out of were board games and
kids’ bikes. Without power, kids aren’t
watching TV anymore, they’re playing like we did when we were kids, you know,
old school, like Jenga. Before
Maria, everyone was just staring at their phones all the time. Now the parks are full of people hanging out
with each other. The hurricane forced us
to be a community again.”
If you are interested in supporting a relief fund for Puerto Rico, the link below is one that has been recommended to us, as funds will go do directly to grassroots local charities here:
2 comments
Thanks so much for your blog Jen and love that you can share with us what is happening in PR. I’m sad that they are not getting the support they need and pray that your blog will reach people who can help them. Love you all and continue to pray for safety. Love Sylvia
ReplyDeleteAs always thanks for reading and thanks for the support. Its been an eye opener being down here right now. Cheers Travis
ReplyDelete