STILL LOST

Loss of life and income, point finger at feds

gotten.

“I have been back to the island several times since the storm. With each visit, I am shocked at how slow the rebuilding process has moved.”

In Puerto Rico, storm-weary residents gathered in local town squares, many dressed in white — symbolizing peace — to attend community and government events commemorating the ominous anniversary.

The Mayor of Loiza, one of the hardest-hit towns in Puerto Rico, used the storm’s anniversary — which is also her birthday — to bring attention to the work that remains unfinished.

“It’s the one-year anniversary, and we still have hundreds of people living under blue tarp roofs,” Julia Nazario told the Daily New from her office in Loiza Thursday.

“If you walk around, everything looks fine, the place has been cleaned up, but the mark of the hurricane remains,” she said.

The latest census indicates that 352 families in the town of just under 30,000 residents are still without permanent roofs.

In many cases, residents inherited their homes from relatives, and were denied aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because they couldn’t produce property titles.

More than 9,000 applicants across the island were denied aid for this reason, FEMA spokeswoman Dasha Castillo Gomez told The News Thursday.

The Abraham Lincoln lower school in Old San Juan commemorated the anniversary of the hurricane with a children’s activity called “to serve is to learn.” School children were instructed to bring in supplies that will be delivered to a local animal shelter.