SALINAS, Puerto Rico — Deogracio Arce and Laura Mulero sifted through the belongings that Hurricane Fiona had toppled, destroyed or buried after flooding the bottom level of their home in nearly 5 feet of water.
“Two cars, the washer, the dryer, the engine for the well, the generator,” said Arce, 70, pointing to ruined appliances and belongings strewn across dark mud and tumbleweeds.
The couple’s black SUV landed away in a neighbor’s lot. Their red Toyota sedan filled up with mud. Mulero, an artisan, lost all her art supplies and the merchandise she made despite a constant shaking in her hands that began after earthquakes struck the island in 2020.
Eleven years ago, Arce and Mulero, 70, moved to the southern Puerto Rican town of Salinas, looking for a calm community to spend the later years of their lives. They live in a mint-green home on cement stilts in Villa Esperanza, an informal community on what residents say was an old sugar cane plantation where the Caribbean Sea meets the Nigua River.
The community survived 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria, which ripped off Mulero and Arce’s balcony and part of the back of the house. Villa Esperanza rebuilt its roofs and homes. But last week, Fiona flooded Puerto Rico, hitting its southern and central regions hardest.
“It’s the two of us. We don’t have a way to easily get anything out of here or to clean. We don’t have water, power,” said Mulero, who watched as the Nigua, which borders their backyard, rose during the storm and washed their possessions away.
Hurricane Fiona added more challenges to the ones Puerto Ricans already face every day. The storm destroyed many homes and left millions without electricity or water on an island already struggling with the aftermath of several storms, thousands of earthquakes and tremors, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
On an island where the population is declining because of low fertility rates and massive migration to the U.S. mainland, natural disasters like Fiona hit its rapidly aging inhabitants hard. The reasons: An absence of family and friends who can help in the aftermath; limited mobility and health conditions that make it harder to stay safe, rebuild homes and get basic supplies; a lack of jobs or an inability to work; and poverty levels that force older Puerto Ricans to live in precarious conditions and unsafe housing.
Villa Esperanza’s older community has to clean up after Fiona’s destruction as they grapple with the challenges of weathering Puerto Rico’s constant stream of natural disasters in the last years of their lives.
“It’s very hard. At our age, we don’t have the strength,” Mulero said. “Starting over is really painful.”
But across the island, heroic elders are also on the front lines of hurricanes and earthquakes, leading their communities in hard times, offering their skills for public service, and comforting younger Puerto Ricans.
A rapidly aging, declining population
Puerto Rico’s population has declined by hundreds of thousands of residents over the past dozen years due to a profound economic crisis, a lack of professional opportunities, a vulnerable power grid, expensive and inconsistent electricity, understaffed hospitals, and a string of natural disasters.
Since 2010, the American territory’s population has gone from 3.7 million people to 3.2 million. Today, the island has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates and because migration occurs mostly among younger people, more than 20% of Puerto Rico’s population is 65 and older.
“Puerto Rico has to consider this as its truly central problem,” said Dr. Luis Pericchi, director of the Center of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at the University of Puerto Rico. “And yet it is not confronted, there are no public policies for it.”
The population changes are causing a profound shift in Puerto Rico’s economy, culture and society, even without counting hurricanes and earthquakes.
As more older people live alone, and family members move away, seniors on the island have less support with day-to-day tasks like doctor’s appointments and grocery shopping that family members traditionally help with if they are nearby.
During hurricanes, that can mean older Puerto Ricans don’t have anyone to help them repair damage from wind and floods, take them into their homes, navigate local and federal government bureaucracy to get emergency relief, or even carrying out chores as simple as getting food and gas for a generator.
Fiona caused several direct and indirect deaths in Puerto Rico, many of them among its older residents. A 70-year-old Arecibo man died when he tried to power his generator and it exploded; a 77-year-old man is believed to have suffocated from a generator’s emissions in Vega Baja, and a 72-year-old man and a 93-year woman died from a fire caused by candles in San Juan.
Older Puerto Ricans “are handling generators they have to fuel or dying from gases in closed-up homes,” said Hernando Mattei, a demography professor at the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico. “It reflects a lack of family and community support. These are people who are isolated.”
Often, older Puerto Ricans without family to help out are forced to depend on the government, their communities, or volunteer workers. And many don’t trust the island or federal governments — widely perceived by Puerto Ricans to have failed in their response to Hurricane Maria — to help them.
“What we are lacking is mostly the help of the municipality and the government,” Arce said.
Jorge Pérez Heredia, the mayor of the mountain town of Utuado, told the Miami Herald he had recently seen “critical cases” of many older, lonely Puerto Ricans. Many of his residents have children in the United States or other towns.
In the municipality, Fiona collapsed nine bridges, produced landslides that isolated communities, and caused permanent and temporary damage in at least 60 homes. Many people who live elsewhere have reached out to Pérez Heredia over Facebook, asking him to check in and tend to parents and other family members.
“They get depressed, anxious, because they are going through a storm and don’t have anyone to go to,” he said.
‘We will be here until the end’
Fiona hit the southeast region of the island with devastating floods. The assistant of Salinas’ mayor said that Fiona caused damages in about 3,000 homes. Of thousands of rescues that took place across Puerto Rico, more than 400 were in Salinas, according to the National Weather Service.
Evacuating and rescuing older Puerto Ricans often entails retrieving medications, specialized beds and medical equipment, said Puerto Rico National Guard Lt. Col. Josué David Flores.
During the storm, Villa Esperanza was caught between river and sea. The storm turned the neighborhood into mud, debris and trash. Waters raced through homes, leaving muddied marks across their walls and trashing everything inside. The asphalt roads transformed to mud. A lamppost collapsed and blocked a road, its cables spilling over and hanging in mid-air.
Gilberto Pacheco Padilla, 65, a Villa Esperanza resident and former Civil Defense member, has lived there for more than 10 years. Fiona wrecked his wooden home, the thick river mud plastering the floor, a dark brown water line across the bottom of his gray TV set. The floods even ruined the furniture and appliances he was given after Hurricane Maria.
“When you are younger, more active, you are always helping people,” he said, “When you reach a certain age, well, there are things you can do, and there are things you can’t.”
Arce and Mulero have had to navigate this landscape of disaster on their own. Their grown children are in the U.S. mainland or in other parts of Puerto Rico.
“Your family abandons you, the town abandons you,” Arce said. “The community is not paying attention.”
Dealing with life with no water or electricity has proven to be even more challenging without a car for the long-time couple. After the storm, Arce went down the street to grab boxes of water — the kind of chore made riskier for the elderly, who are more prone to heat strokes, even when basic utilities are available.
Arce came home exhausted and breathless.
“Older people find it very difficult, especially when they have lost the means of transportation to be able to get anywhere and stock up on groceries or gasoline,” said Arce. “Right now, I am stuck here. I can’t move around unless someone comes.”
Treating health problems on an island where thousands of doctors have left, and where hospitals rely on generators during blackouts, becomes even harder during emergencies. Mulero suffers from high blood pressure and thyroid problems. Her hands shake so much she can no longer stir a pot in the kitchen without help, she said.
“If I use force, it’s only a little,” she said. “I have to let him do it on his own, and when I see he’s getting short of breath, I call him upstairs.”
One study identified more than 1,000 excess deaths — or deaths above the expected number — in people 60 and older after Hurricane Maria. They died from heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, blood poisoning and “other” causes. Researchers said the deaths “were likely attributable to lack of access to treatment.”
“My doctor wouldn’t even call me, hospitals wouldn’t see me, I had none of my medications for some time,” during Hurricane Maria, said Mulero. Even during normal times, it can take a long time to get appointments and referrals. She fears it will be even harder to get overdue medical tests after Fiona.
After Fiona, the Puerto Rico Center for Investigative Journalism found that the island’s Department of Health did not put into place a federal program that could help the island’s government track the tens of thousands of patients who rely on electricity for lifesaving medical equipment.
Villa Esperanza residents denounced authorities’ actions, and said they caused or worsened flooding in Salinas: the cutting of mangroves, a pair of bridges that obstruct water flow, the lack of dredging of local waterways. People in other flood-prone communities also said the government did not do enough to protect its residents from the floods.
During a visit to the neighborhood, Salinas’ mayor, Karilyn Bonilla denied this, saying Villa Esperanza was in an unsafe area with a high-risk of flooding where people shouldn’t build, and that the central government was responsible for demolishing the older bridge.
Even if Arce and Mulero wanted to leave Villa Esperanza, they said their children don’t have enough space to take them in. Other older Puerto Ricans who live in places that flood told the Herald they don’t have the money to leave unsafe housing. Nearly 39% of Puerto Ricans 65 and older have incomes below the poverty level, according to the Puerto Rico Community Survey.
“We see ourselves forced to stay here,” said Mulero.
Arce, a retired, longtime chauffeur for a Puerto Rican senator, receives Social Security. Mulero doesn’t, and she can’t qualify for Supplemental Security Income, the federal cash assistance program for people with disabilities. Puerto Rico residents are excluded from the program, a policy the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this year.
“We will be here until the end,” said Arce, “because it’s the only thing we have.“
He added: “It will be hard. But we have to keep going forward. We are alive.”
‘Without them, we are nothing’
Despite the increased risks they face, older Puerto Ricans brave natural disasters and play an important role in emergency response and recovery. Their experiences offer skills, perspectives, and the grace that age can bring.
In Utuado, Pedro Labayen, 70, created a grassroots ham radio network that sprang into life after Hurricane Maria cut the mountain town off from the world. The community-led initiative has several older participants, one of them 93 years old, and connects police, firefighters and the town hospital over the airwaves.
It was the ham radio operators, in fact, who warned officials about a rush of water that collapsed one of the town’s bridges during Hurricane Fiona. The alert gave authorities time to evacuate nearby neighborhoods.
“I listen to people with the experience that Don Pedro has,” said Utuado emergency management director José Rodríguez. “When he brought the idea of the community radio plan, we did not hesitate to plug into it. I have a portable radio in my bag, and at home.”
One of the longest-serving emergency management municipal employees in the mountain town is José Guzmán, a 65-year-old rescatista, an expert in rescues. This hurricane season, he has saved dogs from drowning and took food to a family that was cut off.
“If I have to jump off a cliff to get people out I do it. I jump into the lakes and into rivers,” he told the Herald. “As long as God gives me life and health, I will keep doing this work.”
Older Puerto Ricans also bring food and water to each other in times of need, Arce and Mulero said. It’s longtime friends in their 60s who have helped them clear the mud and weeds out of their home after Fiona.
Brunilda Colón, 79, was among the founding families who nearly two decades ago cleared paths, split up plots, built homes, and made Villa Esperanza into a refuge for poor and humble families who couldn’t afford homes elsewhere.
“The residents here have risen up alone,” said Colón, “It’s the forgotten community of Salinas.”
Colón lost her small home during Hurricane Maria, but built another from concrete on the same plot with FEMA funds. Years before, she helped win the fight against a major gas pipeline that would have displaced Villa Esperanza residents.
The people of the neighborhood view her as the historic memory of Villa Esperanza, a symbol of what it means to get back on your feet and protect your community at all costs.
“Our anchor is Doña Bruni,” said Villa Esperanza resident Joel Méndez, 62, of the neighborhood’s nearly 80-year-old matriarch. “We call her Villa Esperanza’s mayor.”
Puerto Ricans in Villa Esperanza, and from other towns, acknowledged that their elders know how to make a simple sofrito seasoning over wood fires and in what direction the ocean and rivers flood. They carry the knowledge of what the winds and rains have washed away and the consolation that they can rebuild again.
“We help calm down the young, and help whoever needs help,” said Colón, also a member of Villa Esperanza’s emergency management committee. “We know what can happen, how the storms come.”
Puerto Rico’s elders are community pillars who have lived through countless storms and earthquakes, living testimonies of what can be overcome and survived.
“Without them, we are no one,” said Méndez. “They are the roots that hold together the tree.”
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(Miami Herald staff writer Ana Claudia Chacin contributed to this report.)
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