Hurricane Georges Slashes Puerto Rico

Public Workers and SPU/AFSCME work toward recovery — on and off the job.

There was no sleep for Puerto Rico the night of Sept. 21. Winds from Hurricane Georges whipped as fast as 120 miles an hour, ripping roofs from houses, hurling debris and belting torrents of rain. Windows shattered. Trees snapped and crashed. Inside, people crouched, wondering how much battering their shelters would take.

Fourteen people died as a result of the storm, six of them electric utility workers trying to restore power to the island. Damages totaled an estimated $2 billion, twice that of 1989’s wrecker, Hurricane Hugo. More than 120,000 homes, including at least 100 homes of SPU members, were destroyed or severely damaged. Businesses shut down due to damages and the lack of electricity and water. Georges created massive homelessness and joblessness overnight.

“It was a very, very scary experience,” recalls Myra Rivera, vice president of Local 2082, Servidores Públicos Unidos (SPU)/AFSCME and a translator at the Department of Natural Resources. “We were already anxious from all the preparations. ... When it was over, we were collectively depressed. So many people lost their homes. Our beautiful, tropical island was devastated.”

With the storm’s wide east-to-west path, “no one escaped Hurricane Georges,” notes Vicente Quevedo, a botanist and Local 2082 member.

But despite their own losses, public workers were back on the job a day after Georges struck. Like most of the island, their offices were without lights, air conditioning, telephones, computers and water. But direct relief workers were on the job every daylight hour, seven days a week, clearing the island, assessing damages and processing aid applications.

Carmen Rodriguez, a case manager at the Department of Family Services and Arecibo Regional Coordinator for SPU, explained that the relief process was slow for many families. “I help residents fill out applications for the damages to their homes. Then our investigators go out to verify the applications. It is only then that we can give the applications to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).”

The waiting is difficult, she knows. But, she reflects, “We live on a tropical island. We have to know what can happen.”

UNION SOLIDARITY. In the midst of an organizing drive initiated earlier this year with passage of a collective bargaining rights law, SPU switched gears. The organizing drive had to wait; its members’ and the public’s needs would not.

With many of its members working in the heat without water, SPU delivered water and ice to worksites. At the Department of Natural Resources, where field crews assessed damages and cleared debris, “The most important thing we [SPU members] had to do was to look out for our workers,” Rivera said. “They didn’t have the proper equipment for clearing. We reminded them to heed safety rules, wear gloves and helmets. Hard work was necessary, but you’ve also got to have a sense of security.”

With SPU leading the way, some 11 unions formed a work brigade to help with reconstruction. They named their effort the Luisa Capetillo Brigade, in memory of a pioneer labor organizer in Puerto Rico. Capetillo’s work at the turn of the century took her from town to town talking social justice to workers.

Capetillo’s was a most fitting name for relief efforts, because Georges left many Puerto Ricans living a life from centuries past — no tap water, no electricity, washing themselves and their clothes in streams. For several weekends following the hurricane, brigade members headed out to help these people.

WEEKEND ONE. Some 75 brigade members, along with a doctor and three nurses, headed to the center of the island. Mountain passage was dangerous; road shoulders were washed away along with guardrails; the edge of the pavement was the edge of a cliff. Hillside homes slipped to valleys below. Others perched uneasily in a balancing act that looked about to end.

In the devastated Mameyes de Jayuya area, the brigade repaired and outfitted a Methodist retreat center for use as a refugee shelter. The medical team set up a clinic where they saw 160 people, most of them suffering from gastro-intestinal illnesses brought about by contaminated water and poor sewage facilities. The brigade distributed bottled water, medicine, clothing and canned food.

WEEKEND TWO. About 100 union members met at dawn Saturday for the two-hour trip to the mountainous, coffee-growing region of Utuado and Villalba.

Almost-dry mud covered most Utuado streets; dust filled the steamy air. Just two weeks before, a dam broke just outside town, unleashing floodwaters over 12-foot-plus river banks into the town and surrounding areas. The union brigade cleared fallen trees from roadways and recreation areas, and set up a medical clinic at a local school.

In Villalba, food and water were distributed. At the medical center, the brigade’s weekend team included a psychiatrist who helped with the emotional devastation of the storm — the anger, the helplessness of those who lost everything.

When asked why she was giving up her weekends to participate in the brigade, Rodriguez would only say, “I’m here because I like to help people.” Rivera added, “These are our people. We need to help each other.”

WEEKEND THREE. Unions represented in the Capetillo Brigade co-sponsored a rock concert with the American Red Cross and Fondos Unidos (United Funds) of Puerto Rico. Eight bands donated their time and talent to the fundraising effort for storm victims.

The brigade continued its work through several more weekends, traveling to where it was most needed. As for organizing efforts, SPU is resuming them in order to meet its January 1st deadline for collecting signatures, the first step in union representation.

Perhaps good will generated by its relief efforts will help SPU organizing, but, regardless, members have done what they needed to do — helped Puerto Rico recover from the devastation of Georges.

As a newspaper headline shouted: “¡Puerto Rico Se Levanta!” Puerto Rico rises.

By Catherine Barnett Alexander