{"id":5084622,"date":"2018-03-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ctlatinonews.com\/op-ed-puerto-rico-the-battle-for-paradise\/"},"modified":"2018-03-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T04:00:00","slug":"op-ed-puerto-rico-the-battle-for-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/2018\/03\/28\/op-ed-puerto-rico-the-battle-for-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-ED &#8211; Puerto Rico: The Battle For Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"Post-feature-image-wrapper\"><\/div>\n Photo: mostphoto.com\n<p class=\"intrograph\">Like everywhere else in Puerto Rico, the small mountain city of Adjuntas was plunged into total darkness by Hurricane Maria. When residents left their homes to take stock of the damage, they found themselves not only without power and water, but also totally cut off from the rest of the island. Every single road was blocked, either by mounds of mud washed down from the surrounding peaks, or by fallen trees and branches. Yet amid this devastation, there was one bright spot.<\/p>\n<h3>A Solar Oasis<\/h3>\n<p>Just off the main square, a large, pink colonial-style house had light shining through every window. It glowed like a beacon in the terrifying darkness.<br \/>\nThe pink house was Casa Pueblo, a community and ecology center with deep roots in this part of the island. Twenty years ago, its founders, a family of scientists and engineers, installed solar panels on the center\u2019s roof, a move that seemed rather hippy-dippy at the time. Somehow, those panels (upgraded over the years) managed to survive Maria\u2019s hurricane-force winds and falling debris. Which meant that in a sea of post-storm darkness, Casa Pueblo had the only sustained power for miles around.<br \/>\nAnd like moths to a flame, people from all over the hills of Adjuntas made their way to the warm and welcoming light.<br \/>\nAlready a community hub before the storm, the pink house rapidly transformed into a nerve center for self-organized relief efforts. It would be weeks before the Federal Emergency Management Agency or any other agency would arrive with significant aid, so people flocked to Casa Pueblo to collect food, water, tarps, and chainsaws \u2014 and draw on its priceless power supply to charge up their electronics. Most critically, Casa Pueblo became a kind of makeshift field hospital, its airy rooms crowded with elderly people who needed to plug in&#8230;<br \/>\n<em><strong>To read full article, please visit:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/03\/20\/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-recovery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/03\/20\/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-recovery\/<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like everywhere else in Puerto Rico, the small mountain city of Adjuntas was plunged into total darkness by Hurricane Maria. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[998,1000,1001],"tags":[1368],"ppma_author":[565],"class_list":["post-5084622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ct-business","category-ma-business","category-ri-business","tag-historical-atrocities-in-puerto-ricohurricane-mariaisland-in-debtpuerto-rico"],"acf":[],"mb":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Jermaine Smith","author_link":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/author\/jay\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Like everywhere else in Puerto Rico, the small mountain city of Adjuntas was plunged into total darkness by Hurricane Maria. [&hellip;]","authors":[{"term_id":565,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"news-editor","display_name":"News Editor","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"mfb_rest_fields":["title","uagb_featured_image_src","uagb_author_info","uagb_comment_info","uagb_excerpt","authors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5084622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5084622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5084622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5084622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5084622"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinonewsnetwork.com\/ctln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5084622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}