- By Caroline Crofton, Staff Writer -
Old news gets washed away by current news and we forget all about the old stuff. Sept. 20 is a day Puerto Rico will never forget. With a category 4 hurricane hitting landfall with winds at 155 mph, the land was demolished. The storm, Maria, which knocked out all power and most cell service, was the worst storm the Caribbean has seen in recent memory. The home to almost 3.4 million people was now unlivable. Although many organizations have come together and donated to Puerto Rico, the territory is still not nearly close to being fully recovered from the hurricane’s after-effects. The largest problem that still remains in Puerto Rico is that only 65% of the island has power, according to Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Protests have broken out on the island about the power outage, since this problem is causing many other problems.
When the storm hit, many of the residents fled the island when they had the chance. The government believes that the people that fled are gone for good. The government and people of Puerto Rico are still searching for missing persons and making tallies of the ones that have passed. They still do not have a total number of the people that died during the storm. Although tourism is down, most businesses, restaurants, and hotels are rebuilt and back in business. San Juan in particular has already recuperated from the storm far faster than its surrounding cities. Tourism is very vital to Puerto Rico’s economy. Continuing to visit, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, and visit tourist attractions is the best way to help Puerto Rico recover. Slowly but surely, with the help of many others, Puerto Rico is becoming a community again.