Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is the most populated island both Irma and Maria hit. And the crisis there is particularly intense. For one, it’s exacerbated by lack of communications. (1,360 out of 1,600 cell phone towers on the island are out.)
Many communities have been isolated from the outside world for days, relying only on radios for news. The communications shortage means the full extent of the crisis has not been assessed.
“The devastation is vast,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said in a statement Monday. “Make no mistake — this is a humanitarian disaster involving 3.4 million U.S. citizens.”
Five days after Hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico, bisecting the entire island, the US territory is in the grips of a serious, life-threatening crisis, with humanitarian aid getting in far more slowly than is needed.
The island is running short on food, fuel, and access to clean water and there’s limited communications, which means some communities have received no information about the rescue efforts underway.
Among the greatest threats is the continuing lack of power throughout much of the island, after nearly the entire power grid was knocked offline during the storm (about 80 percent of the transmission infrastructure was destroyed). The New York Times reports it could be four to six months before power is restored on the island. That’s half a year with Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents relying on generators, half a year without air conditioning in the tropical climate, half a year where electric pumps can’t bring running water into homes, half a year where even the most basic tasks of modern life are made difficult.
Carnival Cruises will not be coming to San Juan this season. That will be a HUGE blow to the merchants in Old San Juan.
Plaza las Americas, the largest mall in the Caribbean, after getting power and then losing it again, will shut down completely until the power situation is under control.
There are few hospitals with running generators, CNN reports, and fewer with running water. Reuters reports that hospitals are scrambling to find diesel fuels to power generators, and that food supplies are running low. A cardiovascular surgeon the newswire spoke with explained: …without air conditioning, the walls of the operating room were dripping with condensation and floors were slippery. ... Most patients had been discharged or evacuated to other facilities, but some patients remained because their families could not be reached by phone.
"The devastation in Puerto Rico has set us back nearly 20 to 30 years," Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer Gonzalez told CBS News. "I can't deny that the Puerto Rico of now is different from that of a week ago. The destruction of properties, of flattened structures, of families without homes, of debris everywhere. The island's greenery is gone."
Please make a generous donation today so we can help Puerto Rico tomorrow and every day thereafter!
Please help bring relief to this devastated Island State.   
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