There was once a bridge here: A devastated Puerto Rico community deals with isolation after Maria
By Samantha Schmidt September 26 at 2:49 PM
A family crosses a river in Morovis, Puerto Rico. Residents of the San Lorenzo neighborhood have to wade across to the main part of the city because Hurricane Maria washed away a key bridge. (Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo/For The Washington Post)
MOROVIS, PUERTO RICO — There was once a bridge here, connecting the neighborhood of San Lorenzo with the city center, connecting a community with the necessities of American life: supermarkets, gas stations, emergency services.
But Hurricane Maria was unkind to this place and that bridge. In the searing heat, families now trudge through murky, waist-deep water with grocery bags on their heads, large chunks of cement along the riverbed the only evidence that a crossing ever existed.
The storm’s devastation here in the central mountains outside San Juan was among Puerto Rico’s worst, and the bridge collapse was an added insult. Now thousands of residents are sequestered in their toppled town, away from local officials, federal help, food, fuel, water and medicine.
The only way out of the residential neighborhood is to swim across the river or drive at least three hours around a mountain, a near-impossibility because of the scarcity of gas. Residents tied a fallen cable wire across the river in an attempt to send food and water across. As of Monday afternoon, it hadn’t worked.
Elderly and ailing residents of San Lorenzo have no way of accessing medical treatment. On Saturday, three people helped a man on dialysis cross the river in a float fashioned out of a car tire. Once on the other side, his son placed him on the back of a horse and trotted to a hospital, said San Lorenzo resident Antonio Ojeda, who works in the mayor’s office.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/there-was-once-a-bridge-here-a-devastated-puerto-rico-community-deals-with-isolation-after-maria/2017/09/26/772c3a62-a2ca-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html
