Islanders cut off from world: 'We've lost everything'

[DonViejo]

I have a home, family and friends on this island, Vieques Island (7 miles off the SE coast of the main island, PR); I've been worried sick about all of it. At the link for this article, there is a 5 minute video. -- Don

By Bill Weir, CNN
Updated 8:04 AM ET, Thu September 28, 2017

Vieques, Puerto Rico (CNN)The island of Vieques is just seven miles from Puerto Rico. Right now, it might as well be 7,000.

It's been destroyed by Hurricane Maria. And almost entirely cut off.
For seven days, Vieques' people have been watching stocks of food, water and fuel dwindle while they've been in a black hole of no information. Now, crowds line up in the main square to touch the outside world.

On the first private flight in after the storm, resident and aid organizer Robert Becker brought in a bag full of satellite phones and residents wait for two hours in 90-degree heat for their turn to talk to a loved one.

It's their first chance to say I'm alive, the kids are alive. Or to share the shockingly awful conditions that they are trying to survive.

"We're running out of food and water," one woman sobs. "We lost everything."
No gas. No food. No power. Puerto Ricans fear their future

more
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/us/vieques-cut-off-after-hurricane-maria/index.html

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R for exposure.

[pangaia]

2. I was there once in 2009, while 'vacationing" (ugh what a word) in PR....

Traveling in, that's better..

Such a beautiful place....

[Honeycombe8]

3. I can't imagine. Losing everything. All my clothes, my toiletries...

my electronics, my electric gadgets for the kitchen or my hair, all my pictures, my prints, my rugs, my nostalgic items obtained from ancestors, my family's photos of eons ago, my exercise equipment, my dogs' sweaters and collars and toys, my dogs. Everything I've collected over the years that I couldn't possibly afford to replace all at once. Everything I need to feel normal and clean and whole.

I can't imagine.