Hundreds mark Maria anniversary with rally near resort

[struggle4progress]

Updated 2 hrs 15 mins ago

... The protesters .. outside .. Mar-a-Lago ... blasted music, honked horns and waved Puerto Rican flags to let the president know they were angry over the administration's handling of the devastation following the storm.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed, and more than a half million homes were damaged ...

https://6abc.com/society/hundreds-mark-hurricane-maria-anniversary-with-rally-near-trump-resort/4318420/

[struggle4progress]

1. San Francisco vigil for victims of Maria

By Julie Chang | Sep 23, 2018

El Club Puertorriqueño de San Francisco glowed with candlelight Thursday, as the oldest Latino organization in the United States held a vigil to remember the victims of Hurricane Maria one year after the hurricane devastated the island.

“Puerto Rico still needs help, a lot of help,” said club president Jose Solis at the vigil held outside their headquarters at 3249a Mission Street near 29th Street. “One day they got water, the next day they don’t. Electricity is on and off.”

The vigil was part of “Remembering Maria,” a statewide event organized by Los Angeles-based nonprofit Puerto Ricans in Action. Seven cities participated, from Los Angeles to San Francisco ...

“It’s infuriating that situations like mine have been dismissed,” said Coral Figueroa, of San Mateo, whose grandfather passed because he couldn’t get needed medications after the storm ...

https://missionlocal.org/2018/09/vigil-for-victims-of-hurricane-maria/

[struggle4progress]

2. Strength, love and hope a year after Maria

By Micaela Hood / Pocono Record Writer
Posted Sep 22, 2018 at 8:30 PM
Updated Sep 22, 2018 at 9:02 PM

... After the Sept. 20 storm, Wilma Martinez of Stroudsburg .. couldn’t reach her mom, Gladys, and other family members for a month.

... Her mom left the island after Maria and lives in Bronx ...

... at the Pocono Latin Fest, held Sept. 16 at the Mountain Center in Tobyhanna, there was a melancholy feeling in the air ...

... Fatima Galarza can’t forget .. the sound of the monstrous, “angry” wind as the hurricane passed outside her home in San Lorenzo ...

... “We .. put the car by the side of the house to prevent water and rain from coming in” ...

“Some of the banks are closed, the ATMs don’t work, there are blackouts still and the lights go on and off” ...

http://www.poconorecord.com/news/20180922/spirit-of-resilience-strength-love-and-hope-year-after-hurricane-maria

[struggle4progress]

3. Marquette students gather to commemorate Maria anniversary

Natallie St. Onge, Assistant News Editor • September 22, 2018

... “Everyone needed money, needed groceries, no credit cards could be used. The ones that didn’t have cash couldn’t buy anything,” Batiz said ...

“Who knows what might happen if another hurricane comes to Puerto Rico” ...

De Luca said every time she tried calling her dad on the island, it would ring but it would never go through.

“My heart would just drop every time. I couldn’t get in touch with him until three weeks after” ...

https://marquettewire.org/3996591/news/students-gather-to-commemorate-hurricane-maria-anniversary/

[struggle4progress]

4. Rochester Puerto Ricans recall devastation of Maria

September 22, 2018 06:52 PM

... "If the federal government had acted faster, a lot of people would still be alive," said President and CEO of Ibero, Hilda Escher ...

https://www.whec.com/news/rochester-puerto-ricans-hurricane-maria/5080942/

[struggle4progress]

5. Families say death toll was preventable -- and neglect is to blame

Sep 22, 2018 6:14 PM EDT

HARI SREENIVASAN ... a new investigation by Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism, the Associated Press and Quartz has compiled an extensive database of nearly 500 of the victims and how they died ...

ANNA CAMPOY ... we collected case by case, individual cases, real people with their names, their ages, the circumstances of their death. And we received information about 487 cases ...

I think that what strikes me the most is the duration of the disaster. I've covered hurricanes in the past. Then, during the first few days after the hurricane you have very chaotic situations but that usually ends pretty fast. And here you had people whose lives were completely up-ended for months ...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/families-say-hurricane-marias-death-toll-was-preventable-and-neglect-is-to-blame

[struggle4progress]

6. Maria hit women hardest

By Ana Campoy
September 22, 2018

... According to a new Oxfam report, women carried the brunt. “Men did indeed feel the pinch—especially around finding and transporting water—but they were typically not the ones carrying the full physical and emotional weight of managing all the household demands,” the study found.

The authors of the report interviewed about 120 Puerto Ricans in eight municipalities. They discovered that women were more likely than men to report problems with chores such as cooking, doing laundry, and bathing. Much as their grandmothers, women in Puerto Rico remain their families’ main caregivers and are responsible for most of the work inside the home. But in recent decades, that job became much easier as rural areas gained access to running water and electricity.

The hurricane was therefore a real and painful setback for Puerto Rican women. Consider this: the weight of the 80 to 100 gallons of water an average American uses a day is about 800 pounds. Women had to quite literally carry much of that load, from hauling water for flushing the toilet to scrubbing and wringing heavy, wet clothes ...

Here are some of the tasks that Maria made more difficult for women ...

https://qz.com/1399320/hurricane-maria-hit-puerto-ricos-women-the-hardest/

[struggle4progress]

7. Rochester rally calls for more aid for victims

Sean Lahman, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Published 1:21 p.m. ET Sept. 22, 2018 | Updated 6:46 p.m. ET Sept. 22, 2018

... more than a hundred people .. gathered at Washington Square Park Saturday to honor the victims of Maria and rally to do more to help those still suffering the effects ...

Many homes and schools still have to be rebuilt. Many Puerto Ricans fled to mainland USA and have not returned. More than 3,400 of those displaced by the storm came to Rochester, and a coordinated community effort has helped connect them with housing, jobs, and other services ...

State Sen. Joseph Robach, R-Greece, said he would make his voice as loud as he can to advocate for more assistance for Puerto Rico.

"We simply have to demand that the federal government steps up and does its job like it would do for any other Americans," Robach said. "Being part of the United States, we should treat them with respect and use our resources to fix that island" ...

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/09/22/rally-puerto-rico-aid-victims-hurricane-maria/1355799002/

[struggle4progress]

8. Maria survivors in Rhode Island

By Kevin G. Andrade
Journal Staff Writer
Posted Sep 22, 2018 at 9:00 AM

PROVIDENCE — Thursday night .. about 50 people gathered .. at India Point Park ... dressed in black and white — symbolizing mourning and healing ...

“Even so, the walls of the house, even though they were made of concrete, began to shake,” she said. “We took peeks through the windows and saw the roofs flying off of people’s houses.”

“We had about two hours in the middle of the storm, in its eye, to go see our house,” said Rodriguez. “It was gone. ... Half of it was on the baseball field across the street ...

“We didn’t have access to telephones or internet at the time. No one did,” Rodriguez said. “I registered for the aid a couple of days later, but I had to go to Bayamón, 45 minutes away, to get internet to register for that” ...

http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20180922/hurricane-maria-survivors-in-ri-mourning-their-losses-but-carrying-on

[struggle4progress]

9. One Year Later

Pablo Figueroa keeps his belongings wedged into a corner of his home, the only spot where the roof remains.

By The New York Times
Sept. 22, 2018

In August, a team of New York Times journalists visited Punta Santiago, a small town in Puerto Rico near where Hurricane Maria made landfall one year ago. We documented the damage that remains from the storm in more than 150 homes. Many are living in ruin a year later, still awaiting repairs. In house after house, it looks like the hurricane just hit.

Though the United States set aside billions to repair homes in Puerto Rico, many still have gutted kitchens, black mold and collapsed roofs. Time and again, Puerto Ricans who asked FEMA for help with the most basic repairs to their homes waited months for help. Of those awarded a repair grant from FEMA, about two-thirds received less than $3,000 ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/us/photos-hurricane-maria-puerto-rico.html