Not quite Felix and Oscar, but hurricane lodging was a bit odd
My reporting on the hurricane recovery effort in Puerto Rico would not be complete without mention of my roommate on the trip— Rep. Luis Gutierrez.
In an admittedly unorthodox decision, the Chicago congressman and I shared a hotel room and rental car to reduce the logistical difficulties of following him around to hurricane damaged locations on the island.
That arrangement would not normally pass ethical muster from a journalism standpoint, but I thought it was the best way to get the story in this situation. Either way, it ought to be on the record.
Gutierrez and I split the cost of a two double- bed suite at the Embassy Suites San Juan. That’s the only place he could find a room given the shortage caused by Hurricane Maria, and even at that, he needed his connections to get it. I couldn’t find another room nearby.
Gutierrrez ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room. He’s one of those congressmen who bunks in his office inWashington, so he said he was used to it.
Gutierrez and I have known each other since his first run for alderman in 1986, and we get along, but we aren’t friends.
In this case, we had a mutual interest: to share the story of what is— and isn’t— happening in Puerto Rico one month after the hurricane.
Each day by 6:15 a.m ., we would get in the car and head out together on his appointed rounds, which mainly involved purchasing and delivering supplies with funds donated by a Puerto Rican organization from Chicago.
I don’t speak Spanish. Gutierrez helped translate when necessary.
Gutierrez’s parents are from Puerto Rico, and he lived there at times when he was younger. The congressman has kept a second home on the island for many years and currently owns an oceanfront townhouse in a luxury condo development.
I learned Gutierrez is probably more popular in Puerto Rico than in Chicago because of his advocacy on the island’s behalf in Congress, which gets him more media attention there than here. Everywhere we went, random people wanted to chat him up, thank him and get their pictures taken.
One of the stranger moments in my travels with Gutierrez was when I looked up from my computer one night and saw him sitting on the hotel room floor counting his supply of cash.
There were $ 20, $ 50 and $ 100 bills spread out on the couch, chair, coffee table and carpeting.
I knew he had the cash. He told me when we checked into our room that he was putting $ 15,000 in the safe. Most of the money was to be distributed to a few local mayors, the rest to some individual victims.
At that moment, he was making stacks of $ 100 each that he placed in envelopes for the latter purpose.
With most of the country without electricity, many banks were still closed, and ATMs weren’t working. It wouldn’t have made any sense to hand somebody a check under the circumstances.
The difficulty of making large purchases had popped up the previous day when the congressman tried to charge a $ 46,596 payment at Sam’s Club on his Gutierrez for Congress credit card. The charge was rejected, and it took until the next morning to straighten it out with the bank.
Still, I knew the image of a Chicago politician with a pile of cash wouldn’t sit well with everybody. I threatened to take a photo. He said to go ahead. I didn’t.
I witnessed those donated funds being put to good use many times over, but no more so than the day we visited Loiza, an impoverished community clobbered by Hurricane Maria.
Gutierrez met a woman with a severely handicapped adult son whose home had been trashed in the storm.
Suddenly, she began sobbing, explaining that all she wanted was a mattress for her son to replace the rain- damaged one they’d had to throw out. Gutierrez promised to do what he could as he wiped away his own tears.
Within hours, Gutierrez had a mattress delivered to her, and she wept again, this time with happiness. Promise kept.
My roomie did good.