Torture is thy name in Puerto Rico

Denise wrote a great post yesterday.  She requested a diary from my perspective of  discomfort and how I equated it to what is happening in Puerto Rico.

Torture is happening in Puerto Rico, in my opinion.   Irma was very very bad.  I am still feeling the effects of that storm.   We had evacuations, no motels along the way that had vacancies, blackouts for days on end, even 300 plus miles away northward.  Gas was scarce.   Food spoiled.  Grocery stores are still not fully restocked.  We were exposed to all kinds of environmental things flying through the air which has made many of us sick with something described as “ Katrina Cough”.   You cough until you can barely sit up. 

 You feel as though you are going to throw up and then start coughing again and nothing but nothing touches this stuff.  It wears you out.  Some of this is caused by all the pollen, ragweed, and Lord knows what else flying around that you are breathing. The debris you come home to is horrendous.   The piles and piles of debris you have to rake and get control of yet it sits along side the road even today as I type.  Mine has been picked up but the local municipalities finally took it upon themselves to pick it up after  the huge debris piles were blocking roadways, etc.  This was Irma.  There are still huge food lines even today re supplying their food and grocery stores .   Some debris all over the state is still posing environmental threats.   Many of us are still coughing.  This is painting a small pic of Irma which did not take the huge blunt like Puerto Rico.  I have not even mentioned the stress and wanted relief and we were not hit nearly as hard.

I imagine and I bet the farm I am right on the money here.

Puerto Rico has no clean drinking water.  That is documented and a fact but the graphic stuff I am going to relay is what I think is happening.

They are about 85 percent still in the dark.

Now every time I take a coughing spell, like many many women and men, you have a wetting problem.  You have to change, wash yourself, do the laundry and buy depends and pads.   This is graphic but it is a fact.  Now imagine not being able to wash that urine from your leg or keep your body dry because you can’t get to the store and again not wash those clothes.  Imagine… This is torture.  Now imagine stumbling in the dark and your house has crumbled and you are staying somewhere else and are conscious that you smell..because you cannot get water to bathe… This is torture. I can’t imagine this because it angers me so.   

Try and sleep and take a coughing spell from all that debris and you pee and can’t get dry and you start having to compensate for clean and dry and use every single towel available to clean your self up and maybe put a towel below your waist or a sock.  Imagine being a woman on her period on top of coughing and sneezing.  YOU HAVE NO WATER !!!!!!  You don’t have the luxury of wasting water to drink to clean yourself, but you do to get a little relief and then you thirst the next day or two.  Maybe as bad as you feel you drag yourself out and catch rainwater.  Who knows what debris has flown into the rainwater and maybe you can build a fire and heat the water to bathe a little and maybe just maybe you won’t breathe in more toxins from all the mess piled up from shattered trees and homes and vehicles.    Maybe a fire is out of the question if the toxic flood waters is what one must wade through to build that fire and maybe find a spot dry enough to burn some debris and get a pot hot.  THIS IS TORTURE.   

The night comes and the mosquitoes are buzzing and the flies are everywhere.  You know you are coughing and you feel dirty but mostly you are thirsty.  You want a bath.  You want water.  You want a decent full meal.   You want to wash your clothes.  Stopping the cough would be icing on the cake that you don’t have.

All I am about to describe is happening while the rich man in power sits on his golden toilet with his germophobic  hot running water and marble floors.  Get the picture? 

Puerto Rico’s west side: Few signs of FEMA as residents deal with lack of running water, electricity

AGUADILLA, Puerto Rico — David Cortes had no other choice: He and his two children would have to bathe in filthy, muddy water.

They live on Puerto Rico’s west coast in Aguadilla, which Hurricane Maria pummeled last week. There’s no running water, cell service or electricity in the town of about 60,000 people.

Residents such as Cortes are bathing in a town plaza that flooded after a water spring erupted following Maria’s destruction, spewing dirty water.

“We are in a crisis so I have to bathe at the plaza in Aguadilla,” Cortes said Thursday. “I have two kids, and I’m worried because there is no water and no electricity.”

Aid and supplies are relatively plentiful in the island’s capital, San Juan, but they’re harder to come by in more distant areas of the US commonwealth of 3.4 million people.

Federal relief has come to Aguadilla, but not easily or quickly, according to Mayor Carlos Mendez. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is making supplies available for him. But it’s not delivering them.

www.washingtonpost.com/…

CAGUAS, Puerto Rico — Raw sewage is pouring into the rivers and reservoirs of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. People without running water bathe and wash their clothes in contaminated streams, and some islanders have been drinking water from condemned wells.

Nearly a month after the hurricane made landfall, Puerto Rico is only beginning to come to grips with a massive environmental emergency that has no clear end in sight.

“I think this will be the most challenging environmental response after a hurricane that our country has ever seen,” said Judith Enck, who served as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency region that includes Puerto Rico under President Barack Obama.

With hundreds of thousands of people still without running water, and 20 of the island’s 51 sewage treatment plants out of service, there are growing concerns about contamination and disease.

Imagine the smell?  I know during Irma the smell of raw sewage was terrible.   7 days after no power and flood waters, the smell was terrible.   I was bathing two or three times a day while changing clothes and washing.  Can you imagine a cough or upset stomach and vomit or the runs and you can do NOTHING?  I am sure those paper towels sure are handy Orange man.  We are still coughing and heaving because THEY JUST picked up our debris..A month after the storm.  There was black stains everywhere from the piles of rubble lining the streets and this was Irma not Maria.  No wonder people are not thinking straight and drinking poison water.  That feeling of nasty and piss covering your clothes and the ammonia smell has to be hitting people so very hard.  This is torture.   We do not have smellavision but I guarantee you most people could not stand to watch the horror of this torture if we did access to the smell.

Elderly people are suffering a great deal.   They have weakened immune systems.  I cannot imagine how people are cleaning their catheters.  

I know what it is like to cough and pee and cough and pee and change and change.   You want to scream.  I cannot even begin to imagine in it’s true torture form what it must be like to watch a child say “I’m thirsty Mama” or I want a bath.

7 days of a period and no way to shower.  

Walking through deadly toxic water.

Stores not being restocked.

People sick

The stink all around

These are American people. 

 Don’t be fooled to think Irma was all that quick either.  One million times better than Maria but still problems with sickness, and debris and food shortages.

Now I think if you read this far, you have a pretty good idea of how nasty and dangerous this all is while that Fat cat with the orange hair tweets about the horrors of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  How dare he?  Dick Cheney, you got nothing on Donald J Trump.  Torture is not just about waterboarding.   This is torture for Americans in Puerto Rico.   They are hurting.   They are suffering.

Soap and water and little things like clean drinking water and actual food.  I don’t think that is too much to ask from people who just lost EVERYTHING they own.  In the meantime, why don’t you send your high heeled wife and blondie Ivanka down there to walk in the sewage and you drink the water from the wells and then come back and say. “ All is going OK”.  You DJT are a joke and a sick one.   You have no comprehension of human suffering except that which you impose.  YOU are a torturer.   This is Torture.