In September 2017, right after Hurricane Irma left many of us without power, the deadly Category 5 hurricane parked over us for… how many hours? And even though this event had coverage, there are still details about our story that people yet don’t know what happened after the worst natural disaster on record.
When Ada Monzon, our beloved meteorologist, announced that this upcoming hurricane was going to be even worse than Irma, we all got genuinely scared. We didn’t know what was going to happen after this massive storm. Most Puerto Ricans got prepared and had a contingency plan in mind. It wasn’t our first hurricane, so we knew that we needed to get water, canned food, candles, and board games.
Bad things occurred when it was raging over us, but the worst things didn’t happen precisely during Maria, but it’s the actual aftermath that we saw once we stepped foot outside our homes.
1. “The Night We Became People Again”
“La noche que volvimos a ser gente” (“The Night We Became People Again”) is a short story by Jose Luis Gonzalez about the big blackout in New York City. The writer narrates how people were brought together, celebrating after the power went out in the city.
On September 21, 2016 –exactly a year before– a fire caused the collapse of the electrical system, which left more than a million Caribbean islanders without power. That day, after using the hashtag #ApagónPR, one of my tweets went viral with more than 800 retweets, and more than 500 likes.
With this previous experience, we knew that we had to socialize if there was no power. Everyone was telling their story about how their houses were affected; everyone was being empathic with one another. However, the situation grew on us, and it was bringing out the worst in us.
2. Number 2 world-wide longest power outage (3.4 billion hours)
The hurricane knocked out the power to the whole Island, and only 55 % of us had power after 100 days. I think this is the most known fact, but people still don’t know for how long. Well, it was long enough to create PTSD and to increase anxiety and depression in the Caribbean Islander.
This power outage affected big and small businesses, hospitals, schools, our economy, and our mental health. I was a teacher in a private school. I wasn’t able to go back to work until October, and we were working without power. We had a power generator, and the school got financially affected by how much they had to pay for diesel to run the institution.
Everyone was desperate after so many days sleeping with a crazy heat index, with no A/C or a fan. Everyone needed gas to cook, but not everyone was able to do a 10+ hour line. Not everyone had a power generator, and not everyone was able to make those lines to get ice.
I remember how desperate I was. In my bedroom, there was a whiteboard full of tally marks with which I was counting the days. I didn’t even believe my eyes when I saw the numbers on my A/C when the power was back after more than 70 days.
3. Lines, lines everywhere
If you were able to sleep with all the power generators rampaging in the neighborhood, you would still wake up really early in the morning. Since there was no phone reception, your friends would scream your name in front of your house. They were there waiting for you to do one crucial thing: a line.
Why did you need to make a line?
a. To get ice
b. To get water
c. To get gas
We had a small generator, so we didn’t need to get ice to keep our food refrigerated, but we needed to get water and gas. The first day that we noticed our power generator was running out of gas, we got in our car and drove to the next gas station. We were surprised by the number of vehicles that were waiting in line to get $20 of gas. It was around 6 PM, it was getting too dark, which was too dangerous, so we decided to wait for the next day.
We got up around 4 AM (at stupid o’clock in the morning) to go to a different gas station. It was a 1.5-km line, and we were there for 11 hours. The funniest thing is that we didn’t get any gas, so we decided to risk it and go to a different gas station. In the second gas station, we waited for two more hours.
How many hours?
During those two hours, I walked to the station to ask if they were dispatching gas. Luckily, they said yes! I counted how many cars were before me to see if we were going to make it due to the limit of gasoline. I had a verbal fight because a woman tried to cut the line. After 13 hours of waiting in crazy lines, we were able to get $40 of gasoline for our power generator.
We also made lines to get into Costco to get water, but that wasn’t as crazy as the previous experience. We only waited like three hours to get it. Nope, that’s nothing. Now that I think about, we’re ready to conquer Disney.
4. No water and a lot of leptospirosis
With all the debris that Maria caused, it wasn’t such a surprise to find cockroaches and rats everywhere, especially in wooden houses in the central part of the Island –where people got stuck, and ambulances weren’t able to get through. These plagues brought with them diseases and death.
An article states the following:
“The database of causes of death in Puerto Rico –for which the CPI (Center for Investigative Journalism) and CNN sued the Demographic Registry on the Island– lists 26 deaths in the six months following Hurricane Maria that were defined by doctors as “caused” by leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that is transmitted through water and soil, especially after storms and floods. This figure is more than double the deaths reported in Puerto Rico the previous year for the same cause.”
We were sick and dying, but they came to throw at us paper towels and to laugh about our death toll.
5. The Purge Puerto Rico
I think the most important and scary things that didn’t get any coverage was what was happening during the night. It was so dark, you weren’t able to look out the window; you’ll see nothing.
There was a curfew: no one was allowed to be out from 6 PM to 6 AM. The government decided to limit the hours because it got terrifying and Puerto Rico was having its own Purge. The first time that I heard a piece of news like this one was around five days after the hurricane.
Some people went to a major hospital in Puerto Rico to steal two big generators. A woman was connected to a machine to stay alive. After they took what wasn’t theirs, this woman died. Unknown people started to take generators from local businesses, from this hospital, and our homes.
It was scary!
Homeowners with generators had to stay awake, take turns to watch out with lanterns. No one was able to sleep in Puerto Rico. I understand that everyone has their needs and their reasons, but the situation got to the point in which sensibility was lost.
If you had a power generator, you had to keep it in a safe place, hidden –but not too hidden– and try not to be a heavy sleeper.
6. How many died and why there are so many shoes?
When the governor had the presidential visit, he said only 16 deaths happened due to the hurricane. Then the number got to 64. However, a year after the disaster and many investigations, the death toll was 2975. Nevertheless, a Harvard study says that more than 4600 people actually died because of Maria.
The government of Puerto Rico was facing criticism from the Islanders because they were angry due to the lack of transparency with the official death toll. Many Puerto Ricans lost family members, but it wasn’t taken seriously enough, so they had an impromptu memorial by putting the shoes of the lost ones in front of La Fortaleza.
7. The Big Exodus
A little after many people lost their homes and jobs, Puerto Ricans decided that the best decision they could make is to leave the Island and find other opportunities in the Main Land.
I’m going to say this because some people still don’t know.
We are US citizens since 1917. We’ve been US territory since 1898. We get a Social Security number as soon as we are born. It’s easy to get a passport, and we don’t need a visa or a Green Card. We don’t need to become residents, because we already are. However, we can’t vote for the president. And no, we cannot drive to the United States, because Puerto Rico is an island.
The point is that it is easy enough for us to buy a plane ticket, get into a plane, and fly to the United States, which was what many people did after losing their hopes. During those first few days, many Puerto Ricans were in the airport waiting long hours to leave.
According to the Census Bureau, 130 000 Islanders left Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. It’s funny because traffic is still crazy. We were already used to make lines, so this was supposed to be the last one for many.
I am part of that number, but I didn’t come right after. I waited a few months because I wanted to have a plan, a place to stay, and the right reasons.
8. What do you mean with “no coffee”?
Coffee was under menace, and this affected my emotions. I run on coffee and can’t function properly without it.
Well, Maria not only blew away our roofs but also all our vegetation. That’s the main reason the heat index was crazy high. This devastation includes coffee.
Coffee is crucial in the Puerto Rican community, it defines our culture and fills us with pride. In the 19th century, the Vatican drank only coffee from Puerto Rico. That’s why it is known as “the coffee of popes and kings.”
We drink coffee in the morning, after lunch, we even have an official coffee break at 3 PM. If someone visits you, your coffee must be ready to receive them. Our spots to study or hang out are coffee shops, where we have certified baristas that already know our names.
After having two hurricanes passing by our soil with winds of 185-190 mph, our coffee industry may not recover.
“The hurricanes hit right before harvesting, and right before the farmers would normally get their guaranteed full sale. In a few months, possibly weeks, the Island will run out of local coffee”, said Mikol Hoffman for Eater.
I’m so sad.
9. Is this Venezuela? Where’s FEMA with our food?
I remember going to the supermarket to buy some food for dinner. We were surprised to have found empty aisles. The only meat we saw was a pack of hot dogs. People started to compare what we were living with the situation in Venezuela. We might have had a few dollars, but what was the point if we didn’t have any food.
It took a few more days to start receiving food. We have other limits when going to the supermarket; you were only able to buy one item of each. In Costco, you were able to get one pack of water bottles per member, and you needed to show your membership card.
We didn’t know what was going on with the help that was supposed to come from FEMA. Many things expired, and the water was ruined due to sun exposure. Because of this situation, restaurants also had lines, even with their limited menus.
I’m grateful for one of my cousins. She was so concerned that she and her boyfriend sent me a box with canned food, Ramen, and protein bars. I was like a child on Christmas Day opening my box, appreciating everything that I was going to eat.
10. I still see blue plastics
I went to Puerto Rico twice in 2019: the first time was to get my car and bring it to Maryland; the second was to walk in my graduation ceremony. I couldn’t believe that in 2019 I was able to see FEMA blue plastics on the roofs. At the beginning of my flight back, I was counting them, but then there were so many that I couldn’t.
How this affected me as a writer?
I was in the middle of my thesis to earn my master’s degree in Creative Writing. I didn’t need to go to the campus, but I needed to use my laptop to write the chapters for my novel, and also the internet to send them to my thesis director. It was difficult for many of us that were still working on a degree. One of my friends had just started her master’s degree online, and she lives in an area that had no power for a lot more than one hundred days.
I wanted to stay and start my career as a writer in Puerto Rico. I had the best connections in the literature field. However, due to the economic situation, we didn’t have enough to get married and buy a house. It’s nearly impossible. After long conversations with my now-husband, he and I decided that we would get a better job and life opportunities if we left the Island.
A Caribbean Writer in the Main Land
The biggest challenge for me is that, even though Puerto Rico has officially two languages: English and Spanish, my degree was mainly in Spanish writing. I know English grammar, but my strongest grammar knowledge is in Spanish. Sometimes I feel like I need to start from scratch, and I don’t think I’ll ever have a job as a writer.
I earned my BS and my MA from two Puerto Rican universities. Not everyone knows them, so not every company takes them seriously enough to offer me a job. That’s why at the beginning of this year, I began the Copyediting Certificate from the University of California, San Diego, to catch up on everything I might have missed and to improve my writing skills.
One last thing that you may not know that happened after Hurricane Maria is that there is still hope for many of us. At least we’re hardworking people and are willing to learn. I hope the best for the Island, for those who stayed and those who left everything back to start a new life.
