Hurricane Maria recovery highlights Puerto Rico inequalities

[Judi Lynn]

Colleen Long, Associated Press
 Updated 12:40 pm, Wednesday, October 25, 2017

VEGA BAJA, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Maria didn't discriminate between rich and poor when it ravaged Puerto Rico, but the recovery has been another story.

Much of Puerto Rico was still without power Wednesday, more than a month after the storm, but wealthier residents are sealed up in air conditioned homes with their generators and bottled water, or have fled the island altogether for extended vacations, while the poorest are left swatting mosquitoes in sweltering heat and trying to secure enough water.
 
"I have no money. I can't hear very well. It's too hard for me to try to go find another place so I am here waiting for my sister to find me," said Efrain Diaz Figueroa, 70, who sleeps under a shard of tin on a damp mattress in the wreckage of his sister's home, batting away swarms of mosquitoes in the punishing heat. A sign nearby reads: "Don't rob us."
 
Puerto Rico has some of the highest income inequality in the world, said Jose Caraballo, president of Puerto Rico Economists Association. More than 40 percent of the island lives below the poverty line, and tens of thousands are now out of work. Life for them is only getting worse.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Hurricane-Maria-recovery-highlights-Puerto-Rico-12305336.php