‘Everything collapsed’
Everything collapsed.
We lost power, had no water, no health system, no medicine, no communications, no currency and no police. In the days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, we were all in survival mode, which came in handy since we all felt like we were caught in a postapocalyptic movie.
In a flash, all the contemporary things that we take for granted were gone. We only had ourselves to rely on, and our families and communities. It took a disaster of Maria’s magnitude to make us see how fragile modernity really is.
I rode out the storm in my home in Ponce. The blow to our area was not as severe as in other parts of the island. Water was back on within a week and electricity followed 54 days later. We were lucky. In other places, it took nearly six months for basic services to return. And in still other places, it took almost a year.
Rural areas were the most affected. The territory north of Ponce was pummeled by the 155-mph winds and 20 inches of rain. The mountainous municipalities of Adjuntas, Jayuyas and Lares were incommunicado, bridges collapsed and streets and whole neighborhoods buried by mudslides. Those places didn’t see any response from the local or federal government for weeks. They were left to deal with Maria’s devastation on their own. And that’s what the people did.
In the months after Maria, all goods were scarce. Scavenging for drinking water, food, medicines and gasoline was the new normal. A sense of desolation and desperation became part of the landscape, where no news penetrated. Most of the island’s communications infrastructure had been destroyed. By Oct. 10, roughly three weeks after Maria, only 8% of its electricity was back on.
Not knowing the fate of loved ones on other parts of the island was one of the toughest challenges to face. Those who were able to drive around came back with horror stories, making the wait a nightmare.
In the face of such desperation, the people of Puerto Rico had two options: let every man or woman fend for themselves, or come together in cooperation. In most cases, we opted for the latter. In Adjuntas, a place rich with spring water, a community system for sharing cropped up. In Guayama, local fishers set up a food-sharing network. These efforts went on for months and months.
That’s not to say there weren’t problems. Price gouging and hoarding abounded among the greedy. A national curfew was mandated after looting erupted — but outside San Juan, nobody followed it. We didn’t need it. The state was absent, but in our communities, we knew we were safe. For every act of shameful behavior, there were hundreds of good deeds.