{"id":14517,"date":"2026-06-12T14:31:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T14:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=14517"},"modified":"2026-06-12T14:31:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T14:31:39","slug":"once-beset-by-power-outages-puerto-ricans-also-hit-with-severe-water-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=14517","title":{"rendered":"Once beset by power outages, Puerto Ricans also hit with severe water shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By D\u00c1NICA COTO<\/strong><\/p>\n

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) \u2014 Thousands of Puerto Ricans are struggling with water shortages so severe that the governor of the U.S. territory has activated the National Guard and emergency responders are fielding calls every day.<\/p>\n

Read more Where is Southern California\u2019s homebuilding hotspot?<\/a><\/p>\n

Officials have not publicly pinpointed the cause, with shortages largely affecting some areas in the island\u2019s most populated cities, including the capital San Juan. The island\u2019s utilities company extracts water from rivers, reservoirs and underground aquifers that have in the past provided sufficient supply for the island\u2019s 3.2 million people.<\/p>\n

Residents are being forced to buy potable water, spend money at laundromats and haul heavy buckets up several flights of stairs to wash dishes, flush toilets and take showers. The elderly and disabled struggle the most, with community leaders noting that some have been hospitalized as water shortages persist.<\/p>\n

Jorge Figueroa, a community leader for several impoverished San Juan neighborhoods, stood by his car one recent morning fielding questions from residents wondering when the next water truck would swing by.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are playing with people\u2019s health and lives,\u201d Figueroa said.<\/p>\n

Shortages are widespread<\/h4>\n

Some customers in San Juan began reporting intermittent service more than a year ago, with the governor acknowledging the infrastructure has lacked investment and maintenance for decades.<\/p>\n

The water outages have grown so severe that Mayor Miguel Romero sued Puerto Rico\u2019s Water and Sewer Authority in late May.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

People like Jeannette Mercado Rodr\u00edguez have spent up to two weeks without water as Puerto Rico\u2019s searing summer starts and meteorologists are already issuing heat advisories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really exhausting; it\u2019s maddening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old is among the lucky ones: a water truck is stationed near her public housing complex, Las Margaritas. But she still has to haul five buckets and 10 2-liter (half-gallon) bottles up to her third-floor apartment every day. She recently injured her shoulder doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t take it sometimes,\u201d Mercado said, confiding that she has broken down and cried. \u201cThere are older people here, bedridden people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Nearly 40,000 customers were hit with water outages on the first weekend of June. That prompted Gov. Jenniffer Gonz\u00e1lez to activate the National Guard, which began distributing water via four trucks with a capacity of 2,000 gallons (7,570 liters) each.<\/p>\n

Puerto Rico\u2019s Tourism Company brought in additional water trucks with a capacity of 12,800 gallons (48,453 liters) to help serve hotels and short-term rentals.<\/p>\n

The need for water is so great that even Puerto Rico\u2019s Department of Agriculture sanitized two large trucks that transport milk and instead used them to deliver potable water.<\/p>\n

Despite those measures, water remains scarce for many in San Juan and beyond. At least one stationary tanker in an impoverished community sat empty for a couple of days, with residents cheering the water truck when it arrived, calling municipal workers \u201cheroes.\u201d Other residents also complain that the government doesn\u2019t inform them when a water truck will stop by, with those at work missing out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a disaster,\u201d said Luz Laborde, president of a neighborhood association in Santurce, a working-class community in San Juan. \u201cThis is inhuman \u2026 It\u2019s destroying the emotional state of a people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Puerto Ricans demand water<\/h4>\n

Dozens of Puerto Ricans young and old crowded into a courtroom on a recent morning, eager to hear a ruling on the lawsuit that San Juan\u2019s mayor filed against the island\u2019s water and sewer company as they questioned when their water would return.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are exhausted,\u201d said Marcia Soler Par\u00eds, a 61-year-old community leader. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be living this way. We don\u2019t deserve this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Ford recalls more than 250,000 Focus models because engines can stall unexpectedly<\/a><\/p>\n

Every day at dawn, phones ping as people in San Juan and elsewhere share whether they have water, just a trickle or nothing at all.<\/p>\n

Soler calls the emergency management office every other day to request a water truck for her and her neighbors. She lives with her daughter, who has three boys ages 13, 10 and 4, and they play soccer every day. Like many, they don\u2019t have a cistern.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what it is to see a stream of water,\u201d said Soler, who recently spent $40 at a laundromat and was forced to buy plastic cups and plates for her family.<\/p>\n

The extra costs are straining the budgets of many on the island of 3.2 million people where more than 40% live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

Soler said some of her neighbors bedridden and caregivers are forced to use towels and wet wipes to clean them. Another neighbor is blind, so people ferry water up to her apartment.<\/p>\n

For years, chronic power outages have been a big frustration for many Puerto Ricans. Water woes also are at the top of the list now.<\/p>\n

At Villa Kennedy, a nearby public housing complex, Elizabeth S\u00e1nchez, 79, explained how she injured her waist carrying buckets of water. Her husband can no longer help because he injured his back for the same reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are going through is horrible,\u201d she said as she began to cry.<\/p>\n

Judge orders experts to investigate water woes<\/h4>\n

In February 2025, Puerto Rico\u2019s governor appointed Luis Gonz\u00e1lez Delgado as executive president of the island\u2019s Water and Sewer Authority.<\/p>\n

Months later, former regional director Roberto Mart\u00ednez Toledo was replaced. But Mart\u00ednez was recently appointed to a new committee ordered by a judge to work with the agency to investigate and solve the chronic water shortages.<\/p>\n

The mayor of San Juan, who is a member of the governor\u2019s party, said that if Mart\u00ednez hadn\u2019t been removed from his position, \u201cwe wouldn\u2019t be here talking about this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new head of the water and sewer agency blamed Mart\u00ednez for some of the problems.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The crisis) could have been avoided if Roberto Mart\u00ednez had answered the phone the first day I called him,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez told reporters this week, adding that he is willing to work with him.<\/p>\n

Some Puerto Ricans are demanding Gonz\u00e1lez resign as they clamor for Mart\u00ednez to return to his old job, while a growing number are blaming the governor for the situation. On Wednesday night, the governor announced that all projects aimed at fixing water-related infrastructure have started with an investment of $217 million.<\/p>\n

Those without water say they are still being billed for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s another outrage,\u201d said Laborde, the community leader. \u201cYou lose no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more NATO weighs options to defend Europe as the US plans for conflict elsewhere<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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