Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria

By Yari Nieves-Rivera, Editor Emeritus

For one third of my life, the little city of Comerío, hugged by the mountains that make up Puerto Rico’s dorsal spine, was the extent of my entire world. There were towns that bordered, like planets that can barely be reached by our best scientists, but they never mattered to me. The twenty-thousand people that lived there were the only people that mattered to me. My family were the most important. I was proud to be a Nieves, a Rivera, as people in my town always recognized the names. There were a lot of us, of course, but we were always a part of the family.

Today, as of September 21st, 2017, I know nothing of the 20,000 people that inhabit my little world.

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico as a High Category 4 storm, only two miles away from being a Category 5. For reference, that is equivalent to having a F5 tornado covering the entire island for six to eight hours, mixed with rainfall, thunderstorms and actual tornadoes. The last time a hurricane of this magnitude hit the island nation was in 1928, when my great-grandmother was eighteen years old and about to start her own family. My grandfather was only months away from being born. The San Felipe II Hurricane (known in the United States as Okeechobee), is the only Category 5 hurricane to have ever hit the island, and it displaced 500,000 of its citizens, and killed 300. This storm followed the same trajectory as Maria, and caused almost an equal amount of devastation to the island.

At this moment, not much is known about the center of the island. With communication lines lost at the beginning of the storm, all we know is that damage is extensive. They have already declared that power on the island will not be restored for 4-6 months (at the most, a year). As I’m writing this, many Puerto Ricans outside of the island are desperately trying to communicate with their family members through Zello, an online walkie-talkie. There, they have been connecting and relaying information with each other to both comfort and inform those who have no way of speaking to their loved ones. Only two death has been reported on the entire island thus far in the city of Bayamon, but nobody knows what to expect. All that is known is that Puerto Rico had already been suffering from poor infrastructure and Hurricane Irma, and the damage caused could be catastrophic.

Comerío, close to the heart of the island, was founded in 1826 and was originally known as Sabana del Palmar. The name was later changed to honor the local Cacique (Taino Chief), who bears the same name. The history of my little city is little known and little cared for, but it holds the legacy of thousands of people who passed and left their mark. It was most well-known for its agriculture, and it was once called the city of tobacco. My mom, only thirty-seven years old, still remembers sitting below my grandmother’s work tables in the town’s factory as her mother sewed together the leaves of the crop.

From what we know, the entire municipal area of the city is underwater right now. In the historic rainfall that came with and followed Hurricane Maria, the Rio de la Plata, Puerto Rico’s longest river, has crested at over 80.5 feet—the highest it has ever been recorded. In the initial report by the Weather Channel, they hoped that there had been a malfunction with the instruments reading the data coming from my town. The highest the water has ever risen in Comerio happened in 1992, during the Three Kings Day floods. The water rose-up 29 ft, which reached the public square (which is half the town). My mother remembers the devastation, and their methods of recuperation. Her mother and other neighbors bought the flooded stores’ muddied clothes at bargain prices, just to help the store owners recover some of their losses.

From the pictures that have been widespread this morning, it is not a lie. The river has risen higher than ever seen before, to the point that it has flooded the streets that had once been a view point for our famous dam. My mother’s high school, the hospital, our grocery store, my uncle’s hardware store, the pharmacies, everything we know as a part of our way of living is gone.

The last direct communication I had with my cousin, who lived closer to the city, was at one in the morning on the day the Maria obliterated the island. The last time I spoke to my father was at 9pm of the previous night. My grandmother, disabled and unable to evacuate in the same way others would, last spoke to me the same day at noon. As of right now, nobody is sure of the measures being taken to re-establish contact with the center of the island. What is known is that Comerío, as we know it, has become a part of the river.

My neighborhood, known as the Capital of Comerio, is right at the top of a mountain. It has had absolutely no communication with any officials. People who have ventured through the debris and destruction of my neighborhood show pictures of broken cement homes, fallen trees, and an almost incomprehensible amount of loss. Apart from that, there is no other information. Most of my entire family lives up there.

The Island of Enchantment might not be so enchanting at this moment, but it will need all the help it can to be restored to its magnificence. Its beaches are littered, the palm trees are bared and bent, the rainforest bares scars it has never known before, our creatures are hidden, and our vegetation has been plucked from their roots. The emerald colors of our island have faded, but our ocean waves still lull us into the comfort of knowing that we are alive, we are well, and we survived. As many boricuas living around the world will tell you, our bodies are where we are, but our hearts are in our little patch of home.

What I will say is this: Comerío, in Spanish, can be translated to River Eater. My town will rise back up as it has in the past, and wipe the mud off its foothills. The jibaro, our national symbol and hard worker, will rest for these coming days and wearily stand back up to do the job he has always known to do. Puerto Rico has survived many things: colonization, assimilation, hurricanes, earthquakes, genocide, experimentation. But we always rise up, stronger, better, and more united than ever.

Viva Puerto Rico, Viva mi Pueblo, Viva mi Gente, y Viva mi Bandera!

((For inquiries about donations, I defer to recommendations by FEMA, or guidelines such as these))

 Yari Nieves-Rivera is a James Logan alumnus and former Courier Editor-in-Chief.