When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, 'everything collapsed simultaneously'
By Arelis Hernández, Dan Lamothe and Joel Achenbach October 2 at 8:12 PM
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — When things went bad during Hurricane Maria, they went bad all at once, across this entire island. Suddenly, everything was dysfunctional, including the power grid, the cellphone towers, the banking system. Even the disaster managers, the professionals in charge of responding to hurricanes, were forced to evacuate the buildings where they had sheltered during the powerful storm.
They shifted operations to the convention center here, an improvised maneuver that was just one of the reasons the government struggled to meet the challenges Maria presented. They were in the dark. The island’s residents were in the dark. No one knew the extent of what had happened — or what was happening — for days.
“Everything collapsed,” said Héctor Pesquera, the Puerto Rico governor’s director of safety and public protection. “Everything collapsed simultaneously.”
Nearly two weeks after Maria caused a historic catastrophe and thrust Puerto Rico into a humanitarian crisis, President Trump on Tuesday is scheduled to make his first visit to the island since the storm hit on Sept. 20.
Trump is expected to meet with Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, who has repeatedly expressed appreciation for federal support from Washington. It is unclear whether Trump will encounter San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, who has sharply criticized the federal effort, saying that Puerto Ricans are dying while the nation’s bureaucracy stumbles.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/when-hurricane-maria-hit-puerto-rico-everything-collapsed-simultaneously/2017/10/02/a945dfa4-a79c-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html