Many In Puerto Rico Still Without Water or Electricity
People fill containers with water from a stream near the Puerto Rico Highway 52 in Cayey on Tuesday. People have been without water service in their homes after Hurricane Maria roared through a week ago.
Three weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm, officials are warning the island’s health system is in dire condition as the island still has severely limited electricity and running water. Many residents have contracted bacterial diseases, likely as a result of their exposure to contaminated floodwaters but without electricity and clean water-treatment is scarce. The official death toll from Hurricane Maria has now risen to 45.
Hurricane Maria knocked out the water system for more than half the island’s 3.4 million people, leaving many reusing what little water they can get their hands on. Medical experts say it is one of the factors that make them deeply concerned over a possible spike in infectious diseases in coming weeks. Twenty of the island’s fifty-one sewage treatment plants are still out of service allowing raw sewage to contaminate rivers, streams and reservoirs. Those without running water bathe and wash their clothes in contaminated streams, and some islanders have been drinking water from condemned wells.
Nine out of 10 homes on the island still have no electricity, leaving fans and air conditioning units unavailable to stave off mosquitos carrying illness in the storm’s aftermath. Neither electricity nor running water is expected to be fully restored for months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says 64 of the island’s 68 hospitals are open but only 25 are hooked up to the power grid. The remaining hospitals are running off of generators that aren’t meant to be used for such long periods and rely on erratic diesel supplies.
Some 11,000 U.S. military personnel have come to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, and convoys of military vehicles carrying pallets of bottled water and meals are visible in the interior. Mosquito control units deployed in six municipalities, officials said, and five temporary biomedical waste stations have been set up.
FEMA has 16,000 federal and military assets are on the ground in Puerto Rico and about 350,000 Puerto Ricans have registered so far in the FEMA system to receive financial assistance. Roads and highways have been washed out, hampering relief efforts to the interior of the island. Some remote areas have not received any help since the storm. Food and basic supplies remain scarce in the mountainous interior making the threat of waterborne diseases grow.
Authorities hope the arrival of the USNS Comfort will help ease problems at hospitals around the island. The hospital ship has one of the largest trauma facilities in the United States and is equipped with three operating rooms, 50 ICU beds along with another 200 other beds, and some 500 medical personnel. Two MH-60 helicopters sit on its landing-pad deck.
The ship will treat patients and also provide services to other hospitals such as refilling tanks for medical-grade oxygen and re-sterilizing hospital gear. The ship’s staff had already treated 64 patients shortly after its arrival and medical personnel expected to see many others with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension and lung problems.
