Puerto Rico Check In

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
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I appreciate a few of you asking about my son in PR, so thought I would also update here and make it a general thread so others can update too. I hope all are ok. This is my son’s first hurricane, but his neighbors have said this one is actually worse than Maria was for their area of PR.

Fortunately my guy still had cell phone signal for parts of both days and he is all set up for solar, plus there was enough light through the clouds today to keep his solar going. Therefore, we’ve been able to talk and text - limited, but still contact.

He was in the 25-30" rain/mountain area about 45 minutes or so northeast from Ponce, but he, his wife, his neighbors, and their houses are all fine. There have been a few trees down that they worked to clear off the road today and there are some minor + a moderate mudslide in his area. One of them is within two feet of the edge of a road - the downslope side. Being a mama, I reminded him not to go close to that edge because more could drop off while things are still wet. He said he knew, but…

They’re not expected to get power back in his area for 2-3 months, so he’s really glad he has solar and plans to share with his neighbors. He has portable panels.

They have not been able to venture far since most of today has been rainy/stormy too. He doesn’t know how things are away from his neighborhood, but they expect to check more tomorrow.

On his “to get” list for the future are some boulders to better protect their driveway and a manual electric source (bicycle or similar) - and more solar panels.

Son and wife built their (tiny earth) house themselves this past year so they’re really glad it stood up perfectly to both the wind and oodles of downpouring rain. He’s building a permaculture farm and said all of his plants survived too from what he’s seen.

They were not in the worst area for Fiona, but it was still a bad area compared to San Juan or points north/east. His area had tropical storm winds and then tons and tons of stormy rain. I feel for those closer to Ponce and points west of it.

Anyone else have loved ones or friends there? I hope all are well.

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Thank you for the update and HUGS!

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Glad to hear he, his wife and neighbors are doing ok! Does he have any concerns about potable water? Do they have a well? I can’t imagine that much rain in such a short time! Hugs to them and hopes for a speedy response from FEMA!

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I know he has a catchment system he filters and imagine that’s full. His neighbors have a well I believe. I asked him to take pics if he has enough charge today.

I googled the crow flies distance from him to Ponce. It’s 25 miles. Fortunately for him it was in the correct direction. He doesn’t know yet if the roads survived to various places. We’ve seen on the news where a couple of bridges didn’t make it.

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My DIL, who is from San Juan, is home with her family for ten days. She landed only about 12 hours before Fiona did, so she’s relieved about that. Her family is very well-off, but they have no power (thank goodness for generators) and no water. They are used to this and prepare for it, but they can’t go anywhere because the roads are a mess and the traffic lights are out. We were there in Feb 2019 for her and son’s wedding, and there were still traffic lights out because corruption prevented then from getting fixed.

If ever a place needed statehood and federal help it’s Puerto Rico.

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@Creekland what a blessing he has solar panels. Hope nothing gets worse for them.

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I’d been watching several news sources, and honestly it was overwhelming - I’m grateful those of you who have family/friends there are able to receive communication.

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So glad to here this. Sending prayers to Puerto Rico.

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DIL told me that the reason they don’t have water is because the tanks at the processing facility are overflowing with debris and clogging everything.

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We’ve been wandering today, but my PR guy posted the following 10ish minute video on his FB page and Youtube. It shows his property and how well they fared, plus also lets folks see just how minimalist and “back to the land” he is (if anyone cares) - his small house, his handmade water catchment, etc. I asked for pics from the nearby road mudslide tomorrow and he said he’ll get them for me.

Overall, I’m really glad to see them doing well and glad they can help their neighbors by sharing solar panels until the electric comes back. There is hope that his area can get power back tomorrow as it’s areas south/west of him that got hit far worse.

Having solar, water + filter, and a solid house with a good drainage system seems to be a good key for living in the mountains in a hurricane zone.

The “Home” the arrow points to on the pic is where he lives.

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That was really interesting to watch - I went over and looked at a few of his other videos. He’s very good at describing (for this layperson) what his experiences are. Very cool. I hope he and his family and friends remain safe and work together to rebuild.

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This S was the one who showed me there definitely is a Naturalistic component of Multiple Intelligence. He was asking me about the differences in flora/fauna when he was a toddler and just mastering language. Most kids will figure out dog/cat, etc. He was asking me why two houseflies were different - even though to my eye they were the same.

He’s definitely found his niche transforming a poor soil plot of land into a lush, producing forest and living as naturally in it as he/they can.

It’s helpful that he also inherited a teaching gene from my side of the family.

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DIL says her family got both power and water last night. Progress – at least for the folks in San Juan.

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Fiona is heading towards Bermuda where H’s family lives. It is supposed to pass to the west of the island and not be a direct hit. Bermuda builds their houses of stone so they normally withstand hurricanes pretty well.

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I was going to share pics, but apparently I can’t on this thread? I’ll leave what I wrote about them, then I guess one has to use their imagination - or I can go put them on the photos thread.

The first two are on the road my son takes to town, not Ponce. He hasn’t been there since there are very long lines for gasoline and many stations are out. No electric restored in his area yet either. His neighbors lost all the food they had in their fridge/freezer that they couldn’t eat yesterday.

The last three are pics a friend of his who lives near Utuado texted him. That friend thinks he might be stuck in for a month or two. Utuado is northwest of my guy in what should have been a less hit area wind-wise, but there was all that rain that did havoc.

The potential pro of this is PR is supposedly talking about redoing their grid with a high reliance on solar, not fossil fuels. Many of his neighbors are in the process of switching or adding too. Most of them have generators, but those only last so long without fuel. Roads being washed out is quite a problem with this storm he says. Solar is far more dependable there.

ETA: It let me put them on the next post - no clue why I couldn’t put them on this one, but such is life.

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Territory Energy Profile Data indicates that Puerto Rico utility scale generation of electricity in 2020 was about 18 billion kWh, of which 1 billion kWh was from renewable sources. However, any solar panels on houses would be non-utility-scale generation. It could also be that the immediate grid problem that needs solving is the distribution, rather than the generation. If distribution is unreliable, then local residents have more incentive to install their own solar.

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I wish we’d give PR gazillion dollars, and have someone reliable supervise it, in order to bury their electric wires underground.

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I agree in theory, but I don’t know if that would have helped in this storm. The wind didn’t do much damage relatively. The floods washing out roads and more did. If lines were underground I don’t think they’d have fared well either.

In another storm with mainly wind damage, I’d agree. I wish our lines in PA were underground too. They come down most often from trees or car accidents, both of which wouldn’t happen if they were underground.

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So glad their property fared relatively well during the storm. My son is leaving for Puerto Rico on Sunday with the Civil Air Patrol, he will be a mission specialist and arial photographer on flights to assess damage for FEMA. This poor island and the people have been through so much.

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