 "Hurricane Irma")
At the time this article was written, Hurricane Irma was hours away from making its pit stop in the archipelago of Puerto Rico. Its first rain showers and gusts of wind were just making themselves known, and people were still hammering wood panels over their windows, making last-minute supermarket runs, using Facebook live and risking their lives to witness the life-threatening sublimity of the rising tides and swells.
While some were enjoying their last chuleta frita y arroz con habichuelas [Fried pork chop with rice and beans], the Electric Power Authority (AEE) was predicting the worst for certain areas and towns in Puerto Rico, the worst case scenarios ranging from power outages lasting from 3 to 4 months. Other areas were still being evacuated from the northeastern coastal living areas, where Hurricane Irma was predicted to hit the hardest. While many of the refuge sites are well equipped, others, like the one in the neighboring island of Culebra — an island municipality of Puerto Rico — are running short on power plants and other essential resources.
A natural disaster aggravated by environmental injustice and debt crisis
Applied Energy Systems (AES), a corporation that generates coal-based energy, has been fined by the Environmental Quality Board (JCA) for not properly covering toxic ashes, AGREMAX (a compound of coal combustion derivatives) and coal waste that they dump and produce near the town of Peñuelas and other neighboring towns and areas. The uncovered ashes, AGREMAX and coal waste are at the mercy of Irma’s hurricane and tropical storm winds and running waters, representing a profound health risk to communities far and wide.
Moreover, Puerto Rico is currently facing one of the most detrimental financial and socio-political crises of its contemporary history, faced with a $74 billion debt and $49 billion in pension obligations. The recipe for this debt disaster has involved draconian budget cuts, austerity measures and neoliberal politics, further worsening a decades-long fall into precarity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is running out of funds, which leaves one to only hope that Congress and the Senate will reinstate and provide more funding.
“…hoping for a little humanity to come back after all of this.”
Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans try to prepare for what comes ahead. The perspectives are grim, and the sense that they are being left behind, by both the government and the media, further aggravates deep feelings of discontent. As Maureen O'Danu writes, the status of Puerto Rico can also be seen by the importance given to the island's grievances in the international and US media, as she puts it in her article “In the Eye of Hurricane Irma There is (Too Much) Quiet“
