FEATURE - Power Outage After Hurricane Fiona Exposes Governance Flaws In Puerto Rico

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2022) In wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, a resident on the island explained to Sputnik why the troubles locals faced were more than the effects of a natural disaster.

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico five years ago, Malary Malzart Feliciano was lucky enough to avoid it as she left the island to assist disaster relief efforts in Texas one day before the storm arrived.

But when she returned to her home one month after the storm, Feliciano was shocked by what she was about to experience.

"I got hired and flew out. And then Maria hit here. My windows were open. My apartment was flooded from rainwater and I wasn't here to get it out. When I came home, all my stuff was filled with mold.� I had to throw everything out. I came back a month later. And for the first five months, I still didn't have power. I think you kind of just go into this weird mental survival mode, where you don't even really realize what you're in but you just know you have to keep going," Feliciano told Sputnik.

For those whose homes did not suffer serious damages during Hurricane Maria, the prolonged power outage brought new challenges.

"I spent a lot of money eating out. And I think, for me and probably most people who didn't lose everything, that's probably the more difficult part. You're forced to spend money on breakfast, lunch and dinner outside, as opposed to buying groceries and cooking at home," she said.

After living through the difficult months without power after Hurricane Maria, Feliciano thought the local government would be better prepared when another tropical storm hit the island.

Unfortunately, when Hurricane Fiona swept through Puerto Rico on Sunday, Feliciano and other local residents experienced the same challenges as they did five years ago.

"Majority of the island, more than half, still doesn't have power. I think I saw that about half, or again more than half, still doesn't have water either. And I got water back yesterday. I still don't have power," she said.

Because of the tropical climate in Puerto Rico, losing power also meant that local residents could no longer keep their homes cool with air conditioners.

"We're also in the midst of getting a heatwave. I think I saw on the news this morning that it's getting hotter, which is rare for this time. For instance, last night, I didn't get any sleep because it was just way too hot. I mean, what are the odds, there was no power and no breeze. It was awful," Feliciano said.

Five days after Hurricane Fiona hit the island, about 1.033 million customers in Puerto Rico were still without power, according to figures from poweroutages.com, which estimates power outages based on utility data.

Compared to Hurricane Maria, which was a category 5 hurricane with winds of up to 175 miles per hour, Hurricane Fiona was only a category 1 storm when it reached Puerto Rico on Sunday.

After millions of Puerto Ricans lived through the painful months without power after Hurricane Maria, the fragility of island's power grid made locals like Feliciano angrier this time.

"We're a tropical island. We've been a tropical island forever. There's no reason why we can't survive a tropical storm. Why is a tropical storm such a disaster? It shouldn't be. We live through this every year. It happens every year. We should be professionals at this. We should be the safest place in the world to handle tropical storms. You go to California, the buildings are built for earthquakes. Why are we not built for tropical storms?" she said.

Feliciano also questioned the local government's decision to let LUMA Energy, a Canadian company, to become the operator of Puerto Rico's power grid, after the island's power systems were almost completely destroyed by Hurricane Maria.

"I don't know if you're aware who LUMA is. LUMA is our current electricity supplier. LUMA is a Canadian company and the owner is from Canada. And it's just very confusing. Like why? Like, what are you doing here? You have nothing to do with this country. You're not even from the US. You're from Canada. And you get paid over millions of Dollars a year. And here right now, there're people losing hundreds and thousands of dollars in food, and spending thousands of dollars a week trying to keep their generators on. You get paid millions of dollars a year to do what exactly?" she said.

The young Puerto Rican argued that the root of the problem with the island's power grid was corruption within the local government.

"There's a lot of corruption here. For instance, years after Maria, we were finding warehouses with an influx of supplies that were supposed to be given out during Maria. And that's why our last governor got overthrown. They were protesting here and our last governor had to step down because the people here found out that there were warehouses and supplies. It was because you had people who were starving and thirsty and dying, and you were hoarding and hiding all these supplies. I think a lot of people like to place a lot of blame on the US government because we are a territory. But at the end of the day, it comes back to our own government. I think our own government is extremely corrupted as well," she said.

Feliciano, a 29-year-old artist who teaches painting classes and sells her artwork, believed the younger generation on the island was ready to take actions to overhaul the existing system.

"If you watch the new Bad Bunny music video, his new music video is actually 22 minutes long. It's like two minutes of it is a music video and two minutes of it is politics. We have this thing here called Act 60-20-22. Basically, anyone who's not from Puerto Rico, that are from the US, they are allowed to move their business here with no capital gains. They don't have to pay taxes on the money that they make, if they live here six months out of the year. What you now have is an influx of millionaires from the US relocating here buying up homes. That is now essentially leaving Puerto Ricans unable to purchase homes and having nowhere to live, because they're buying investment properties such as Airbnbs, rental homes and vacation homes," she said.

When the song Despacito from Puerto Rican artists Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee took over the world in 2017, appeals from both artists after Hurricane Maria helped the island secure millions of dollars in donations.

For a Grammy-winning artist like Bad Bunny to take on the political issues in Puerto Rico head on, Feliciano hoped that the younger generation could follow his lead to demand fundamental changes.

"We do have some younger people rising up now. We're ready to fight for change and I will be one of them, because I think it's a mess and it's sad. They're taking advantage of good people who just don't like to fight back. Puerto Ricans don't like to argue. They are just happy. We call it the island life. Everything's on a slower pace and a calmer pace. What you did was to take advantage of a group of calm people and decide that they were easy because they don't fight back. He (Bad Bunny) is very for it. He always speaks out against what's going on here. That's why I love him so much, because he's speaking on behalf of millions who want to see change and who are tired of a broken system," she said.

As for herself, Feliciano plans to continue to collect donations and offer them to others whose experienced more serious damages caused by the flooding during Hurricane Fiona.