N.C., N.J. residents step into aid gaps
Samaritan’s Purse ‘uniquely positioned’ to provide storm relief
While the government faces criticism over its ability to distribute relief to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, a North Carolina-based aid group said it’s making inroads for the hardest hit residents of the island.
Samaritan’s Purse, a group founded by the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, has international headquarters in the mountain town of Boone, N.C., and a worldwide reach.
The group used Puerto Rico as its Caribbean aid base for Hurricane Irma relief. After Maria brought some of the most destructive power ever seen in the U.S. territory, that staff quadrupled to 26 focused on the island itself.
“We were uniquely positioned and could respond immediately,” said Samaritan’s Purse spokeswoman Shanna Carter, shouting over the roar of plane and helicopter noise Friday at a San Juan aviation center where the nonprofit group offloaded cargo.
By Friday, the group’s Disaster Assistance Response Team had delivered blankets, hygiene kits, heavy tarps and other emergency supplies for 1,200 families in the town of Canovanas, a 30-minute drive east of San Juan.
In the opposite direction, an hour and a half west of the capital, DART members responded to the pleas of a doctor, Luis Paz, and set up two generators in Quebradillas for medical clinics Paz said were overwhelmed with patients and needed power.
Plans were made to fly a helicopter to the large southern coastal city of Ponce on the opposite side of the island from San Juan. DART members hope to make their way inland into higher elevations where the fate of many residents is unknown but destruction is likely to be heavy.
“We really want to get to the people who have not been reached in the mountainous interior region,” Carter said, “even if that means getting out of the car and walking.”
The large-scale government response was slowed by crippling power outages and a lack of drivers to distribute 10,000 containers of relief supplies at San Juan’s port.
Dave Holzhauer manages the Samaritan’s Purse DART and said he sees the organization’s role as “trying to meet gaps” in the larger government response.
“The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a massive presence,” Holzhauer said. “So we’re trying to go places where they are not going.”
Samaritan’s Purse staffers learn the status of parts of the territory through general reports shared by various government entities. Some of the information includes NASA satellite imagery.
They get information at the ground level through local officials or residents who reach out to them. The Christian group also uses a natural channel: ministers who can tell them about types of need.
That information is relayed back to Boone, where the headquarters sends orders to Samaritan’s Purse warehouses. The supplies are trucked to waiting planes, such as the organization’s up-fitted 1968 DC-8, which has a cargo hold capable of carrying
84,000 pounds.
Early Friday, that plane left Greensboro, N.C., making the three-hour flight to San Juan.
On the ground, the aviation center was a hive of activity as aircraft of various models from various governmental agencies offloaded goods and took on crowds of passengers
Crew from the Samaritan’s Purse plane, including pilots, unloaded cargo, including tarps for
4,200 families, community water filtration units, several thousand jerry cans for carrying water and
1,000 solar lights.
The supplies would be moved to trucks and on to a final destination. It was a smaller and much more intimate operation than the bigger one taking place at the capital’s port.
Holzhauer said he didn’t anticipate storm-damaged roads being a problem. “If streets are blocked, we’ll find an alternate route,” the DART leader said.
At the aviation center’s waiting area, people and luggage were packed into chairs, standing along walls and clustered outside in the muggy afternoon heat.
Commercial flights out were filled.
“We’re going to go to Texas,” said Edwin Gonzalez, a Mexican surgeon who has lived in Puerto Rico for four years and was traveling with his wife and her sister.
They live in a building that had minor damage but had not had water for more than a week. The family had tickets to leave but saw them canceled four times as flights were called off. Gonzales said he spent his 30th birthday trying to secure tickets, rationing water and waiting eight hours in his car to buy $20 in gas.
“It’s impossible to live here right now,” he said.
A friend offered them seats on a charter flight, and they jumped at the chance.
Bethnilliam Diaz Andino was at the waiting area along with other relatives to see off her 84year-old grandfather. An uncle who is an aviation mechanic for a private company secured two seats for them to Philadelphia, where they have family.
“My grandfather didn’t want to go,” Andino said. “But he’s a cancer survivor, and we decided with the hospitals like they are, he should go.”
Andino, a student in San Juan, said she would leave, given the chance. Her residence lost power after Irma and hadn’t gotten it back. Refrigerators don’t work, and people are “eating what they can,” she said.
Her mother, Ruth Andino Tapia, said she would not leave Puerto Rico. “I was born here,” she said. “I’m going to stay here, for the good or the bad.”
She said she worries about relatives in areas that are almost certainly in worse shape. In Loiza to the east, they have about two dozen cousins and other family members from whom they hadn’t heard anything in a week.
“We pray to God they are OK,” she said.
In New Jersey, residents made their own plans to send aid.
Days after Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Deedee Montanaro got a text from a cousin: “We’re alive. Send batteries.”
Another cousin reached her from Gurabo, a town in the north-central part of the island, describing what sounded like an apocalyptic setting. “There’s nothing left of the vegetation ... it looks like the island burnt down.”
Bridges collapsed, and roads disappeared under mudslides and debris. More than half of the island doesn’t have clean water, and roads in many areas remain impassible.
Thursday, President Trump waived the Jones Act, a law that restricts foreign shipping to U.S. ports after the governor of Puerto Rico and other U.S. officials argued it would help get supplies to the island faster.
Thousands of shipping containers sat in a San Juan port. One shipping company, Crowley, said it had 3,000 containers holding clothes, food, medicine, water and other supplies, but it could send out only 4% because there aren’t enough truck drivers.
Elizabeth, N.J., Councilman Carlos Torres, whose non-profit Puerto Rico Alliance of Elizabeth collects supplies, said he made plans with Crowley to ship aid to the island.
“I’d like to get it beyond San Juan, maybe to Ponce or Coamo, somewhere toward the middle,” said Torres, whose sister and nephew live on the island.
In Asbury Park, N.J., Montanaro and her colleagues at the Community Affairs and Resource Center (CARC) collected nonperishable foods, medicine, toiletries and other supplies for Puerto Rico and Mexico, which was struck by a savage earthquake last month. They have 40 bags of food, 20 bags of clothing and pet food. Churches spread the word to their parishioners to gather supplies for CARC.
“As soon as we put up our fliers in our office and on social media, it took off,” Montanaro said. “We’ve actually had clients from this area who are in need show up with bags of groceries and bags of clothes.”