Posted inJustice, News

Months after Maria, relief center helps more than 1,000 arrivals

More than three months after Hurricane Maria left widespread devastation and wiped out power across Puerto Rico, Connecticut is still seeing displaced evacuees arriving from the island in search of aid and stability. MaryAnne Pascone is managing director and the director of community education at Capitol Region Education Councils Relief Center. In this Sunday Conversation she spoke about the challenges and conditions facing the islanders seeking the center’s help.

Posted inNews

Leaving Puerto Rico was hard, but Milagros Dávila has faith

Milagros Dávila and her husband Eddie Taveras didn’t want to abandon their lives in Salinas, Puerto Rico. But after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island, they were left, as were most Puerto Ricans, without clean drinking water, electricity, food or jobs. In this Sunday conversation she talks about leaving the place she was born for Connecticut and says she has faith she will return. She just doesn’t know when.

Posted inPolitics

Competing with Trump, a social worker speaks for Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria announced its landfall near Yabucoa, P.R., with a terrible wailing. Sustained winds of 155 miles per hour shredded the electric grid, flattened trees, scoured gardens and ruined the back of the sturdy cement home of a retired Hartford school social worker, Janette Hernandez. “I still hear that sound in my head,” she said. Hernandez is back in Connecticut, giving voice to the stories of people she left behind.

Posted inNews

Bridgeport resident weathers Maria in San Juan, but worries about recovery elsewhere

WASHINGTON — Concerned about his family and friends, Julio López Varona rushed from Bridgeport to Puerto Rico a few days before Hurricane Maria crushed the island. A day before President Donald Trump visits his homeland, López Varona says he’s disappointed by the U.S. response, and worries about the fate of millions who don’t live in the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan, which he calls “an oasis” because of its access to U.S. aid.

Posted inNews

‘Humanitarian crisis’ on island worries CT’s Puerto Rican community

WASHINGTON — Yanil Terón is one of the more fortunate members of Connecticut’s large Puerto Rican community. In the past 24 hours, Terón has learned from strangers in the Dominican Republic and Florida that her brother and sister had survived the walloping Hurricane Maria gave her island birthplace six days ago. But she and others with relatives on the storm-tossed island are increasingly concerned about a “humanitarian crisis” that’s engulfing Puerto Rico.