Dam collapse threatens to kill thousands in Puerto Rico
By
Rafael Azul
23 September 2017
Sunlight finally shone intermittently in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Friday following a night of heavy rain—more than three feet fell in the previous twenty-four hours. There are flash flood warnings and people are being told to seek higher ground. Stores that are still open are running out of water bottles. Those that still have them are rationing them. Two days after the hurricane, virtually every necessity is in short supply.
That food, fuel and other essentials are in short supply so soon, despite having been rationed since before Maria hit the island, is an indictment of the current administration of Ricardo Rosselló, the ruling Financial Oversight and Management Board, and the American government which has kept the island under colonial subjugation for over a century. All three are guilty of criminal indifference and lack of preparation.
All over the island streets are blocked by hundreds of toppled electric posts, leaving all of Puerto Rico with no public electric power. Hundreds of trees have also been yanked out by the sustained 150 mile-per-hour winds.
The heavy rains caused a partial failure in the Guajataca Dam, on the northern coast about 70 miles west of San Juan. The breach sent streams of water toward the cities of Isabela (pop. 45,000) and Quebradillas (pop. 26,000), prompting calls for the last-minute emergency evacuation of some 70,000 people.
Abner Gomez, executive director of Puerto Rico’s emergency management agency, said “thousands of people could die” if the dam suffers a total failure.
On Puerto Rico’s southern coast, the historic city of Ponce, Puerto Rico’s second largest, is incommunicado from the central government. Its mayor, María Meléndez,…