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Ibero American leader tries to help in Puerto Rico

Ibero American Action League

A prominent leader in the Rochester Puerto Rican community is on that island right now, trying to help out her relatives and others in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria.

Rosario Escher is president of the Ibero American Action league, which provides a number of services locally, and their organization is ramping to help what is expected to be an influx of people from Puerto Rico moving temporarily or permanently to Rochester.

WXXI News spoke with Rosario Escher on Monday via a satellite phone we were able to loan her, since cell phone service is very spotty throughout Puerto Rico.

When she arrived last Saturday, one thing that struck her right away was the lack of lights in the island’s capital, San Juan, and Rosario Escher says from what she had heard and seen before she got there, there haven’t been too many improvements since the devastating hurricane struck in late September.

“So not much has changed, I still believe that the island is in crisis; the hills and mountains are all brown , the trees lost all of their foliage,” she told WXXI News.

One reason Rosario Escher went to Puerto Rico was the difficult her sister and other people in her family were facing, lack of food, difficulty access money because of a lack of power at the banks and other problems, but she says her relatives are doing a little better.

“My family is doing well, my sister is better now that I am here;  like I mentioned to you I was bringing a generator, they did not let me bring it on the airplane so I sent it via FedEx and we’re hoping that it gets here today.”

Rosario Escher says clean, fresh water, is not easy to come by.

“They get water, but I tell you, the water that comes, it’s like brown, so it’s not a water that you can drink.”

So she has been at the stores, waiting on line, buying bottled water…except that water isn’t very cool.

“The water that you buy in bottles, you have to drink it warm, there is no ice, that is one of the commodities that you can’t find.”

The heat is an issue, muggy conditions and highs in the 80s…and the lack of trees, many of which were taken down by the high winds, just contributes to the steamy conditions.

“It’s very very hot and very humid; it’s hotter because there is no foliage and very humid because it rains for half an hour and it stops , then it rains again, so I’m outside and I’m sweating.”

Rosario Escher says she is doing what she can to help her family and their neighbors while she’s down there, buying food and other items.

“On Saturday I went around to the different parts of my hometown, and (there was ) a lot of people that have no electricity, no flashlights, they’re using candles so I went around distributing; we bought 40 pounds of bread , we went distributing the bread, flashlights and fans.”

Hilda Rosario Escher expects to be in Puerto Rico for several days and she says if necessary, she’ll make a second trip.

WXXI News hopes to have additional updates from Rosario Escher from Puerto Rico during the week.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.