UTUADO, P.R. — Tito El Bambino, one of Puerto Rico’s best known reggaeton singers, picked up the donated cases of water and bags of food, hugged the grandmother and walked the supplies up the stairs of her flooded-out duplex.
“Que Dios te bendiga” — May God bless you — said the woman, Rosa Torres Rental, 70, teary-eyed, as the two embraced. “You don’t forget about the forgotten.”
“I’m here to help,” Tito said, flashing her a grin.
In the weeks after Hurricane Maria steamrollered Puerto Rico in late September, breaking concrete poles in half, sweeping away bridges, soaking houses and flinging roofs, the island collectively shouted for help until, gradually, it arrived. Relief workers began to distribute food, water and medical care. Water came back online little by little. Electricity remains the last holdout; 68 percent has been restored and nine of 78 municipalities remain without.
But the day-to-day task of looking after one another and digging out from the storm, sometimes block by block, has fallen largely to Puerto Ricans, and most have done so with intimate gestures of compassion and solidarity.
“That is the beauty of this,” said Carmen Velez, 53, who motioned recently toward the mud around her house, her broken fence, the mound of unwashed clothes and the lanterns she relies on for light. “We all come together like one big family.”
