SAN GERMÁN, Puerto Rico — Jorge Luis Rivera, his wife and two young daughters were trapped for two days inside their home after Hurricane Fiona battered their farm, downing large trees and dragging floodwaters, asphalt and hard-earned crops down the sloping road in front of their property.
“It became a river, it took with it all of the dirt, all of the asphalt. It took it all,” Rivera, 36, said in Spanish, speaking from his farm on Friday afternoon.
The landslides cut off Rivera’s farm, where he still lacks power and water, until heavy machinery arrived to attempt to clear the destruction. Even some of the machines were damaged in the process, he said.
In San Germán, a municipality in the southwest of Puerto Rico, families were trapped as the region’s large trees fell under the weight of Fiona’s winds and heavy rains, collapsing and cutting off roads. Some homes sustained heavy damage and are without power and water.
Yet San Germán is among the 20 municipalities initially excluded from applying for individual assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, based on the major disaster declaration requested by Puerto Rico's governor and approved by President Joe Biden Thursday. Most of the towns excluded were in the southwestern region, where Hurricane Fiona entered and left incalculable devastation.
Puerto Rican officials insist that more municipalities can be added to the major disaster declaration and apply for individual assistance once they have more information on damages.
They've also stressed that all of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities, including San Germán, were included to receive public assistance for debris removal and emergency efforts such as providing communities with food, generators and anything else that’s needed to stabilize public life, according to Puerto Rico’s Secretary of State Omar Marrero.
'Almost all lost'
But residents in San Germán were frustrated at not being able to apply immediately for individual assistance.
Rivera’s crops were “almost all lost,” he said, as he climbed through the green and brown wreckage of Finca Ilán Ilán, which is part of Puerto Rico’s agroecology movement for sustainable farming. His calf-length boots were caked in mud and he carried a machete to safely make his way through all of the debris.
Gone were hundreds of avocados, the coffee, the eggplants, zucchini and other crops Rivera produces and sells to the community, mostly to nearby restaurants. What remains is also going to waste, as his usual customers have no power or water to reopen their businesses.