Puerto Rico: Lack of power creates life-or-death situations

• Luis De Jesús Ramos, 63, has throat cancer and a tracheostomy.
• He relies on electricity for everything from his blender to his bed to his medical supplies.
• Most of the nearly 1.5 million power customers in Puerto Rico are still without electricity.

When Hurricane Fiona knocked out power and water to the mountain town of Jayuya in the heart of Puerto Rico, Luis De Jess Ramos, who has throat cancer and a tracheostomy, it quickly became a life-or-death situation.

De Jess Ramos is one of many Puerto Ricans who rely on electricity to survive, and each day without it brings a growing sense of urgency.

He relies on life-saving electricity for everything, including the use of a blender to prepare his liquid meals, a refrigerator to store his food, an adjustable bed that keeps him in the positions he needs to sleep safely, and the medical supplies needed to maintain and care for his tracheostomy.

De Jess Ramos, 63, a bald man with white patches in his beard, gestured around his home on Thursday in a white T-shirt and striped flannel pyjamas, pointing out each piece of the puzzle needed to maintain his health needs.

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“He desperately needs these things.” “It’s an emergency,” his 26-year-old daughter Ashly Perez said in Spanish from the ground floor of his family’s home up a winding road in Jayuya, a region where landslides have cut off roads and left bright brown mud, downed trees, and split branches.

The majority of Puerto Rico’s nearly 1.5 million power customers are still without power after an islandwide blackout was reported Sunday, about an hour before Hurricane Fiona’s eye entered the island.

According to Luma Energy, the company in charge of power transmission and distribution in Puerto Rico, approximately 540,000 customers had their power restored as of early Friday morning, representing roughly 37% of all customers. The majority of customers reconnected to the grid are in the northeast, where the storm caused less damage.

Concerns about fuel availability on an island forced to rely on backup generators to power homes and even critical infrastructure such as hospitals and telecommunication towers have begun to rise as Puerto Ricans enter their fifth day without power.

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