Gina Guerrero
contributing writer
Before hurricane Maria hit, my family was doing everything they could to prepare: boarding up businesses and homes, and gathering food and water. They live in Puerto Rico, so of course they prepare for every hurricane the same, just as a precaution.
In the past, they have been warned about “the most dangerous hurricane” that will hit the island, yet every time, the island was lucky enough that the hurricane either slowed down, changed directions, or suffered minor damage.
No matter how much anyone prepared, it wasn’t going to be enough for what was about to occur. My family in the states didn’t become worried until we lost all communication with family on the island. We, then, found out that the entire island lost power. We didn’t know how long it was going to be until we heard from family.
This allowed our minds to think worst case scenarios. After several days, we finally heard from family members who went to San Juan because San Juan had some reception. They were alive and okay, but they lost all their materialistic property and almost all of their roofs were severely damaged or completely ripped off.
The conditions over a month later resemble af if ihe hurricane had just hit. There isn’t enough food and water despite all the donations that have been sent to Puerto Rico. They aren’t receiving answers as to what’s going on. I have an aunt who will be moving to Florida temporarily due to her health conditions. She is running out of medication and was told to not drink the water because it can make her immune system shut down.
I have another aunt who had just returned to Puerto Rico before the hurricane after being in Chicago all summer on vacation. She is now stuck on the island even though she wants to return to Chicago. We don’t have thousands of dollars to get our family out of there because the airlines are taking advantage of our situation.
My family still on the island feel like they are being treated as if they have no ties to America. They are citizens of the United States, yet they aren’t being helped the way they would if they were an official state. This is making them pull farther away from the idea of becoming a state.
So many donations are being sent, yet donations are going missing and not being handed out. We all feel like we are never going to recover from this bad dream that we can’t wake up from. It’s going to be a long and difficult road ahead to try to prepare the island considering we were already in a financial crisis, but my family wants to thank everyone thus far who have donated. Their biggest fear is that they will soon be forgotten because now their situation is “old news”. It is up to us, the citizens in America, to make sure the people, our family, on the island are not forgotten.
guergina@my.dom.edu