SAN
JUAN, P.R. — Two days after Hurricane Maria flattened this island of
3.5 million people, knocking out all its power and much of its water,
the rebuilding of the services and structures needed for people to
resume some semblance of ordinary life was looking more complicated by
the day.
All
or part of three towns in the northwestern part of the island —
Isabela, San Sebastián and Quebradillas — were being evacuated Friday
because of fears about structural damage to the nearby Guajataca Dam.
Close to 70,000 people could be affected if the 90-year-old dam, which
is 120-feet high and can hold about 11 billion gallons of water,
collapsed, said Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló.
And
with everyone from the governor of Puerto Rico to the mayor of San Juan
predicting that it could take four to six months to resume electrical
service, people were contemplating empty refrigerators, campfire
cooking, bathing in their own sweat and perhaps wrangling for fresh
water on an island accustomed to hard times but nothing like what the
future may bring.
“It’s
been hard to see infrastructure deteriorate in Puerto Rico, but it has
been harder to meet citizens who have lost it all,” Governor Rosselló
said.
The
most immediate danger was from the dam, which suffered structural
damage. And finding gasoline was already a big problem. Lines for ice
and gas stretched for blocks. Generators needed diesel or regular gas to
work, and supplies at gas stations were quickly dwindling.
“People
will start going nuts pretty soon,” said Miguel A. Soto-Class,
president of the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan research
organization. “I don’t think it will be 'Mad Max,’ but people will be
looking for diesel and gasoline, more than water even.”
The
water supply was also becoming a problem. Even in San Juan, people need
electricity to access water, and water is also critical to running some
air-conditioning systems. At Centro Medico, a major hospital outside
San Juan in Río Piedras, the emergency unit was treating patients but
had no air-conditioning, said Dr. Johnny Rullán, a physician.
But the biggest long-term obstacle was the prospect of months without power.
Puerto
Ricans are the first to say they can improvise — resolver — when a
drought dries them up or a terrible storm knocks them down. But the idea
of grappling long term without power hung like a pall over the island.
“This
is really affecting me,” said Nina Rodriguez, a human resources manager
in San Juan. “I have four children and the youngest is 6 months old. We
are preparing for six months, maybe even a year without power.”
She added: “All the infrastructure has collapsed. Everything we had before the hurricane is beyond reach.”
While few places could withstand a Category 4 hurricane without extensive damage to power grids, Puerto Rico’s government-owned power company
was particularly vulnerable because of a history of neglect,
mismanagement, out-of-control debt and decrepit infrastructure, experts
said. A monopoly by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or Prepa,
was reviled by island residents long before Hurricane Maria shut it
down.
“Our
plants look like the cars in Cuba,” said Eduardo Bhatia, a Puerto Rican
senator. They could produce power before the hurricane, but not
efficiently and not cheaply.
Even
though Hurricane Irma spared Puerto Rico, brushing it lightly as it
whirled west two weeks ago, almost 70 percent of the island lost power.
Some residents were still waiting for electricity when Hurricane Maria
hit the island.
Eugenio
Toro and his wife Cristina Bernal lost power Sept. 6. As a result, they
felt ill prepared for Hurricane Maria. “We couldn’t freeze things,” Mr.
Toro said. “We never got the light back. We did go buy a generator but
there is little gas and we can only use it a few hours a day.”
So
much of the damage still needs to be assessed that it is possible the
power situation may turn out to be less dire than feared. On Friday,
Prepa’s chief executive, Ricardo Ramos, said on CNBC that he was hopeful
that the power plants — as opposed to the power lines, pylons,
substations and transformers — may be intact.
“We’ve
lost probably 80 percent of the transmission and distribution
infrastructure,” he said, adding that crews had completed only about a
third of an island-wide survey of the damage and would have more
information in two days.
He
also said that important buildings on the island, including Centro
Medico and a convention center now being used by emergency workers,
would have their power back in two or three days.
Mr.
Ramos said he shortened estimates for how long power would be out after
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York arrived Friday with teams to help
restore electricity. “We expect three to four months at most,” for the
whole island, he said.
Getting
power back to Puerto Rico will be daunting and expensive. Transformers,
poles and power lines snake from coastal areas across hard-to-access
mountains. In some cases, the poles have to be maneuvered in place with
helicopters.
And
yet it gets worse. Puerto Rico is an island, which means the tons of
much-needed supplies — trucks, poles, cables, tools, spare parts,
helicopters — must be shipped into Caribbean ports, making the process
infinitely more cumbersome. Trained electrical workers by the hundreds
will also have to be flown into Puerto Rico, where they will have to
find places to stay, not an uncomplicated task.
So every relief delivery can be a major event.
Mr.
Cuomo and a delegation from New York arrived Friday morning with
supplies that included more than 34,000 bottles of water, 500
flashlights, 1,400 cots and blankets and, perhaps most important, 10
generators.
Mr.
Soto-Class said Prepa has been plagued by bungling and more recently a
debt it cannot pay, a shortage of cash, and layoffs. Some of its
infrastructure dates back to the 1970s, or earlier.
“When
the electric power authority had the money, they mismanaged it and
didn’t invest,” he said. “Now there is less money to run the authority
with. This compounds it all, one on top of the other.”
By
some measures, the authority, formed during the Great Depression, is
the largest public electric utility in the United States, with more than
1.5 million customers. Most of the electricity it produces is generated
by burning fuel oil — a dirty, outmoded source. It is virtually the
last power company producing electricity that way. Hearings in the Puerto Rican Senate
revealed that the authority bought sludge and then billed Puerto Rico’s
unsuspecting ratepayers as if they had bought high-grade oil.
The
lack of electricity also affects the water supply in certain areas.
Some towns need electricity to get their water pumped in.
For
now, generators are the saving grace for the lucky few who have them to
crank up their refrigerator and a few fans. Some restaurants, hotels
and many hospitals have operating generators. But the vast majority of
Puerto Ricans on the impoverished island cannot afford them.
For older residents, the lack of power could be dangerous.
Ermerita Rosa Perez, 83, sat on her porch in San Juan praying the rosary and worrying not just about comfort but about survival.
“Four
to six months without electricity?! Oh no, no, no, no, we will die,”
Ms. Rosa said. “Us old people can’t make it that long. Just today, I was
looking at this flooded mess and I was thinking of mopping. I said,
‘No, I can’t. I need to rest.’ I will take a cold water bath — which I’m
not supposed to do, because I have arthritis — and rest.”
She
worried about her health. “I am diabetic. I have high blood pressure.
It’s so hot I can’t take it,” she said. “I’m an old lady, hauling pots
to my carport to cook on a gas stove? It’s too much. So I sit here on my
porch, trying to catch a breeze, praying to God to bring things back to
normal.”
Her son, Hilberto Caban, was less panicked. He said the authorities were probably exaggerating how long the lights would be out.
“That way if it takes three weeks or a month, we’ll all say, ‘Great! Look how hard they worked!” he said.
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