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Watch CNN's investigation into the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in "Storm of Controversy: What Happened to Puerto Rico" Friday at 10:00 pm? ET / PT.
On the island, the Maria generation will remember 9/20, a striking example of the fact that few things test the values of a society as a massive disaster.
Even though earthquakes and volcanoes are not an alarm signal, a hurricane can be a test of resistance to idling force, intelligence and national cohesion.
When the winds die and the clouds separate, it is impossible to ignore any defect in preparation or response. How a country counts its dead and measures its losses will shape the way it prepares for the next big and bad day.
"There is something wrong with him," said Diana Aponte when I read the tweet. "People are still dying because of Maria, how could he doubt it? He has no heart. He is worthless."
So, in the honor of Miguel and all those victims whose names we may not know, this is how human nature has supplanted the destruction of Mother Nature in Puerto Rico.
Food and water
In a good day, you can travel the width of Puerto Rico in less than three hours.
After Maria has shot down countless power poles and hills, it could take three days.
In comparison, the United States had 22,000 troops, more than 30 ships and some 300 helicopters on the island of Haiti, two weeks after the 2010 earthquake.
"I think we have up to 30,000 meals, 35,000 meals," said Eric Carlson, tired, in a luggage deposit turned into a stacked house. "And this, just with the small trucks we have, and hurry and rogue to get supplies."
"I do not know how much we can make without impacting Puerto Rico's economy," Hernandez told a month ago. "If I continue to flood the place with food and water, when will the local neighbors open their supermarket?"
After initially accusing local officials of not distributing it, Hernandez admits that they simply shipped too much, too late.
"We are studying how we got here," he said. "Because it's a big lesson for us."
Power
Native Puerto Ricans – the hearty "Boriquas" – are used to power outages.
While US power plants and transmission lines are generally updated every decade, Puerto Rico's power grid has been neglected for decades before Maria tears it apart.
The two-year-old company had only two registered employees, but they had a houseboat full of mates, linemen and equipment that could not be found after Harvey and Irma – and most importantly, says Ramos, they had not asked for any payment in advance.
Before leaving the island, Whitefish Energy's teams were able to repair five transmission lines faster and cheaper than other contractors, said PREPA's Archives and FEMA's Inspector General. the new head of PREPA, José Ortiz.
"I do not think we were prepared," said Ortiz. "We did not realize that we needed to identify the stocks and manufacturers for a major disaster like this – there was a lot of mismanagement."
Ortiz says that during the next storm, he has already signed self-help contracts with 32 entrepreneurs.
Shelter
"Operation Blue Roof" was supposed to fill part of this gap and provide the only thing most people needed after food and water: sheltering from a humid tropical sky.
FEMA distributed nearly 170,000 tarpaulins for self-installation, but in the first three months after the storm, 70,000 people signed up to install a heavy duty tarpaulin by the Corps of Engineers. 39; army.
While flying over the island today, blue tarps can be seen everywhere. What is supposed to be temporary solutions is now in tatters and fades in the sun as the island struggles to rebuild itself.
More difficult to see is the emotional toll caused by the approach of the storms under the roofs.
How it all adds up
The doctors were forced to operate in dark, hot, and non-sterile hospitals. For some users of breathing apparatus or dialysis, lack of production gas makes the difference between life and death. That's why scientists at George Washington University said the 2,975 additional deaths occurred in six months after the storm.
"Whenever FEMA is the first speaker and the main speaker as we were in Puerto Rico, it's never an ideal situation," FEMA Chief Brock Long told me in November. . "But I believe we have prevented this island from collapsing completely and completely."
Local officials from Vieques to Utuado bristled when I shared his quote. If you want a lesson in self-sufficiency, come to Puerto Rico, they say. Because more than a century after becoming the property of the United States, they have no choice but to get rid of a Caribbean colony, pay taxes without representation in Congress and vote only for primary presidential.
"In terms of response, in terms of unnecessary bureaucracy, in terms of lack of urgency, for example, from the Corps of Engineers, it is likely that being a US territory and being second-class citizens plays a huge role," Governor Ricardo Rosselló said to me. Like his father, governor of Puerto Rico for two terms, Rosselló is part of the long line of leaders who argue that the island deserves to be a state.
Over the past century, Puerto Ricans have died in American wars, played on grassroots and American stages, and have made tremendous use of American medicine.
Do they need their own star on the flag to be treated like Texas or Florida?
Leyla Santiago and John Sutter from CNN contributed to this story.
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