Puerto Rico: Better, but ...
Six months after Hurricane Maria, life in Puerto Rico is improved but not normal.
TOA ALTA, Puerto Rico – Life is better for Michelle Rebollo since Hurricane Maria upended her world last year. The electricity goes out at times, often for hours, but is largely back on, water flows steadily from faucets and work crews finally hauled away piles of debris.
Yet life is still far from normal. She’s a month behind in her bills. Her income is unsteady. Worst of all, the jovial unity forged among her neighbors in the storm’s immediate aftermath has faded to sullen despair.
“Recovery here has been so slow that it’s affected people,” said Rebollo, 45. “Everyone’s tense. No one’s talking to one another. You see it in their faces: They’ve changed.”
The powerful Category 4 Hurricane Maria raked across the island Sept. 20, killing at least 60 people and causing widespread damage. It was the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory in 80 years.
As the six-month anniversary of the storm approaches, Puerto Ricans are trudging slowly away from survival and into the difficult realities of long-term recovery.
Nearly 200,000 families and businesses — 16 percent of the island — remain without power. The island faces a growing mental health crisis as people wrestle with their losses. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency is faced with tough questions about botched contracts in its recovery effort.
USA TODAY first met Rebollo in October as she captured water from a mountain stream on the side of a highway near Naranjito, about 20 miles southwest of San Juan. The following month, electricity and water returned to her home, though she was still washing clothes by hand because Maria damaged the washer and dryer she kept outside on the patio.
Today, her top concerns are the lack of revenue from her tour business and the darkening moods of Puerto Ricans. She lives in a small concrete home in Toa Alta, west of San Juan, with seven other family members.
Her tour company, Aventura Total, relied on young Puerto Ricans and foreigners wanting to take trips such as kayaking near Culebra Island or hiking in El Yunque National Forest. Where she would organize trips of 15 or 16 people every week or other week before Maria, today she averages around six or seven people — and sometimes none, she said.
Electricity returned to the Rebollo home last year. But unannounced dar-kouts still routinely hit the neighborhood. On a recent afternoon, the lights went out, so Rebollo set up solar-powered lamps and boiled water on a propane camp stove.
“Unfortunately, this is normal,” she said.
Through the hardships, Rebollo has been awed by the random kindness of strangers. One JetBlue flight attendant contacted her via her firm’s Facebook page, took her, her daughter and grandson out to breakfast in San Juan and left her a suitcase full of solar-powered lamps and other gifts. A former boss from a Home Depot temp job gave her a $500 Walmart gift certificate for Christmas and a $200 check for groceries. “I fell to the floor, crying,” she said. But she’s worried about her fellow Puerto Ricans. Whereas not long ago everyone on the street was asking about the welfare of each other or handing out plates of food, today everyone seems to be tense and quiet, she said. While waiting in line at the bank recently, Rebollo started telling jokes to break the tension.
“Maria really clobbered us. For better or for worse, we’ve all changed,” Rebollo said.