PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As Puerto Rico deals with the damage left behind from Hurricane Fiona, some from the Philadelphia area are en route to the island to help loved ones.
There were two flights Tuesday morning from Philadelphia International Airport to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Some travelers returned home after they sought refuge from the storm in Philly. Others flew down to make sure their family members were OK.
“It’s kind of worrisome,” said Felix, who did not disclose his last name. “I know it’s pretty difficult to get over there. Right now, my sister is over there; she was vacationing. Now this all happened.”
He caught a flight to the island with his grandmother.
“I’m helping out my aunt, my grandma, and helping out with cleaning and anything that they need help with down there,” he said.
The storm bombarded the territory with heavy rainfall, causing mudslides and widespread power outages and leaving most residents without running water.
“My plan is to go to Puerto Rico and stay with my family and see my family and see that everybody stays good,” said one unnamed traveler, adding, “Puerto Rico is strong.”
U.S. emergency crews were sent to assist Puerto Rican authorities. Two members of Pennsylvania Task Force 1, who are part of the Philadelphia Fire Department, were deployed and may spend up to two weeks on the island, which has not yet fully recovered from Hurricane Maria.
Philadelphia Fire Capt. Ken Pagurek, program manager of Pennsylvania Task Force 1’s urban search and rescue, arrived in San Juan on Tuesday afternoon. He said he and others there to support relief efforts are still getting their marching orders as teams make their way to the island and coalesce.
“I think solar power has been coming back on. It's been raining,” he said. “There's been some challenges with us getting ourselves here and the teams here as well. You know — weather related, at airports where the planes weren't flying and whatnot.”
Pagurek says, when he gets out to the worst-affected areas of the island, he will have a better idea of what is most urgently needed. When he was in Puerto Rico after hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, he said, the main problem he encountered was access to rural communities in the mountains.
“One of the issues after Maria came through the island was a lot of the towns or villages up in the hillsides and the mountains here were kind of cut off. There was mudslides, bridges out — you couldn't access them via ground. So we were coordinating teams going up into those areas via helicopter lift to bring food, water, and to see if there were any unmet needs up in those areas.”
That storm killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the power grid in 2017. Five years later, more than 3,000 homes on the island are still covered by blue tarps.
Hurricane Fiona has strengthened to a Category 3 but is not expected to threaten the U.S. mainland.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.