The Aftermath of Maria - Day 10
It’s Saturday, September 30th. We have running water. There’s no power and no cell signal. Jason walked Juliet since Maria and Luis are in San Juan today. Pierre had lots of new information to share with us. He went to WalMart for a phone and they are closed because they ran out of diesel for their generator. He drove to the Claro store and they are closed because there is not a functioning cell tower close enough to the store to activate new phones. He then drove to Aguada for gas because he heard they are filling tanks (no $10 or $15 ration) but they were sold out for the day. They get nightly shipments of fuel, but not full tanker trucks. Pierre will get up at 4am tomorrow and get in the gas line, fill up, and then drive to Bayamon for a cell signal. He says he has food for the week and he did see some ATM lines with $100 limits. He was able to buy things at a Walgreens in Aguada with his credit card, but there was no cash back. Pierre spoke with guards outside the airport in Aguadilla and they say it’s closed until Monday after Trump lands there. Son of a bitch. So we definitely can’t fly out of Aguadilla until at least Tuesday, and who knows how many people will get shuffled onto new flights because of this unexpected four day closure. Pierre reports that FEMA is now distributing water at the Aguadilla Arena. That’s great news, but we immediately worry about all the people who don’t drive or don’t have cash for gas or can’t stand in a cash or gas line. We hope they are somehow reaching those people as well.
After having time to digest everything Pierre shared with us, we were more anxious about our escape flight. I was mentally preparing myself to live in this hurricane hell for at least another three or four weeks. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Maria was back from San Juan.
Her face appeared in our doorway.
She was holding her cell phone.
Her eyes met mine.
“You guys are leaving here on Saturday.”
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER!!!!!!!
She handed me her cell phone so I could read all the texts between her and my Dad. I carefully copied all the flight info onto my little green notepad. Our flight was to Miami on American Airlines out of San Juan on October 7th, seven days from now. Maria says that Luis will drive us across island to the airport. She gets huge hugs and big thank yous from both of us. It turns out Maria was unable to call my Dad, but she was able to send him texts. She was determined to get us a flight. In a three hour window, my Dad received my original request for JetBlue. He called and was unable to get anything booked through them. Maria then instructed him to try flights out of San Juan. He called American and flights were booked three weeks out, but while on the phone with the agent two seats opened up on October 7th, and he said hell yes I want those! He then managed to text all of this info back to Maria while she was still in range of a cell signal. Holy shit the stars aligned for us. And Maria and my Dad are fucking rock stars. If we can get to Miami, we can get a flight to Dallas or we can rent a car and drive there. We don’t care. Miami has water and power and hotels with hot showers and our cell phones will work there all the time.
We head down to the parking lot to share our flight news. On the way down Luis tells us that he was able to get a $500 cash advance from a casino in San Juan for joining their player’s club. Screw the banks! That was a brilliant idea. There is a casino in Aguadilla, maybe they’ll do the same. We get downstairs and find Chris in a lawn chair with Dr. Eric holding her foot. Turns out she dislocated her toe because she lost at a game of Uno, got up, and ran into a table. The doc gave her a shot, reset her toe, bandaged it, and someone brought a frozen box of milk to ice her foot. This is how medical care is happening all over Puerto Rico, literally in the streets. Dr. Eric tells us the hospital in Aguadilla closed today and many people died as a result. His wife is a nurse at CIMA (the emergency room in Isabela) which is still open but was already overwhelmed before the hospital closing, and now it’s beyond crazy. CIMA has no X-ray capabilities and can only run CBC and urinalysis. That’s it. Because all communications are down, there’s no insurance info, no money can flow, no coding, nothing. Medical supplies are terrifyingly limited. The closest fully functioning hospital is in Mayaguez. All the doctors who live here look like zombies. I can’t imagine the things they’ve seen and dealt with this week.
Nick caught some CNN radio last night and said they have reporters all over the island, and they are all reporting that everything is terrible. Puerto Rico is still not seeing much progress from US government involvement. Nick has a plane ticket for a flight out of Aguadilla on Friday and he’s now worried the airport will still be closed to commercial flights. I’m worried for him. I’m also thanking Maria a million times in my head for pushing my Dad to get us a flight out of San Juan.