What doesn't kill you...

Makes you stronger

September 21, 2024 marked the seventh anniversary of the day that the devastating Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017. When Hurricane Maria hit, I did not know that I was a targeted individual. I could not fathom such evil existed.

Almost 5,000 people lost their lives because of the governor Ricardo Rossello’s ineptitude, lack of compassion, and outright corruption. While people did not even have water to drink, the corrupt governor was having delicacies flown in to the hotel where he stayed and had two floors housing his privileged family and friends for months, paid for with American taxpayer dollar.

In a tribute to the victims, mourners placed in front of the legislature the shoes of those whose lives were lost because of governmental ineptitude and malfeasance, not the hurricane.

In the summer of 2019, one million of us marched for an entire day to demand the crooked governor’s resignation.

I hold no doubt in my mind that Hurricane Maria was an act of weather manipulation to get rid of 500,000 Puerto Ricans, forcing them to migrate. I learned from a reliable source who read a classified memo, that FEMA had a plan to get rid of 400,000 of them, sending them to Florida to sway the elections while taking their property away through the use of legal mechanisms such as eminent domain and declarations of public nuisance.

The relativity of tragedy

Looking back at a post I wrote seven years ago, I now realize that tragedy is relative.

For one, even though I underwent substantial pain and anguish in the hurricane’s aftermath, I was relatively unscathed compared to many of my fellow islanders that lost it all. Hopelessness forced many into suicide.

What was seemingly unbearable then does not compare to what the government criminals have put me through since then.

The hurricane’s aftermath was a training ground that strengthened me to endure what was to come.

I have decided to republish the musings I wrote a few days after the hurricane struck in homage to our capacity to overcome adversity and derive strength and determination from it.

You can turn despair into a powerful force that can help you build yourself back into a stronger, undefeatable being.

Here’s a fragment of what I wrote back then:

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Minute by Minute

Gratitude. The one proven sentiment that triggers happiness within our soul. In terrible circumstances however, it becomes so evasive that even though at a conscious level you aim to feel it, your mind, flesh and bones interfere with the giddiness it produces even when one thinks of those things one is grateful for.

It is easy to feel grateful while sitting in your comfortable air-conditioned room, dining in an exquisite restaurant or lounging at the beach in a tropical paradise. 

It is a challenge to feel grateful with no electricity, in a barren, desolate place with no hopes of it improving in the near future of getting out of it.  A place where your 5 senses and your body, mind, soul and spirit are under continuous attack. An attempt at feeling grateful while being suffocated by a constant, unbearable heat that feels, literally, like a burning inferno is, to say the least, a challenge if not outright impossible. 

Safety is a feeling that I no longer remember how it felt like and that I wonder if I will ever feel again. 

Imagine starting your day waking up drenched in sweat after a sleepless night dozing on and off listening to the only radio station that survived the hurricane’s fury. Since misery likes company, I leave the radio on all night. It is, in some strange way, comforting to hear other people’s voices interrupt the deafening silence where even nature has gone quiet.

The only radio station that survived the hurricane is a news station whose name seemed to be a premonition: Radio One (“Radio Uno”). The ONE station keeping an entire island company. A station whose main broadcaster is not very smart, who continues to make every polls every day asking if they believe that the hurricane was a punishment from God for all the harm we have perpetrated against mother nature. I kid you not. He has no clue that if that were the case, Maria would have hit China or India, not Puerto Rico.

As tortuous as it is to hear this unintelligent man speak on days’ end, the alternative of utmost silence is even more unbearable.

I leave all doors and windows open at night with the hopes of catching an elusive night breeze. In the tropics, the trade winds are strong during the day but at night, the air is stagnant. Stagnant enough as to facilitate the mosquitoes’ mission of sucking every last drop of blood out of your body. Stagnant enough as to allow the diesel-emission cloud of the neighbors’ electric generators asphyxiate your lungs throughout the night. Stagnant enough as to not alleviate the unbearable temperatures resulting from the ambient heat exacerbated by the release of heat from the ground and floor surfaces that accumulated throughout the day.

The darkness is so dense at night that I cannot see my hand when I extend my arm.

I get out of bed and rule out taking a shower right away. There is no water service since all of the water utility’s plants are out of service. I have a water tank and thus a trickle of water comes out of my faucets. Bathing though is yet another reason to feel miserable. Without electricity, the pump that makes the water tank work efficiently cannot do its job. Cold water softly flows down to the house from the tank on the roof through gravity. When it has to go up to the shower head, nothing comes out. 

I must also preserve every last drop of valuable water in my emergency tank. Once it is gone, washing cups or dishes, taking scant showers or even flushing toilet will be a thing of the past.  I only hope that the US military takes over the water treatment facilities and makes them work again. With less than half of the hospitals open and no reliable source of water, I’d rather not think about the endless possibilities of what may transpire. 

Having no agenda for the day, the plan becomes one of mental survival. “One day at a time” is no longer an option. Sanity has become a minute by minute effort. 

I go down the stairs to tend to my three dogs and two cats. 

I open all doors and windows to let in a faint breeze but instead the confused bees and wasps displaced by the hurricane make its way into the house, in an act of desperation looking for their homes.

Healthy eating is out of the question. Without a working fridge, it is not feasible to buy fruit or salad — if you can find it— for more than a day.

A trip to the market requires standing amidst hundreds of persons reminiscent of the Black Friday shoppers, lacking the most basic sense of courtesy.

None of my friends live close by. I spend my days in the company of my pets.

I still do not have cellular communication. Out of 1789 cellular phone antennas in PR, 1707 went down. Seven days later, it feels as though not a single one has been fixed.  Even when the service providers get to fix them, thugs make their way into the tower area and steal the diesel of the electric generator that the antennas need to work, bringing it all back to square one.

Since the hurricane struck, has not been possible to communicate with anyone outside of the metropolitan area. It is easier to be able to text someone in the mainland – from the shoulder of the highway—than anyone within the island. 

The sweltering temperatures hover above 90 degrees each day. I have not had a cold drink in 5 days. Ice is nowhere to be found. Ice producers’ trucks are violently hijacked by gangs. Adding insult to injury, the governor imposed a prohibition on the sale of any alcoholic beverage. Thus, even if I walked to my nearby restaurant operating with a generator, I cannot have a much-desired cold beer because the government has prohibited its citizens from that simple luxury to commoners. Not so for the privileged ones staying at the hotel with the governor, paid for with taxpayer dollars.

I have to be grateful, though, because people in dire need — those in hospitals and retirement homes— do not have sufficient fuel to keep their generators and refrigeration going. Doctors cannot open their offices; some patients that require dialysis have perished and are [cruelly] advised to “drink soup with a fork”. Patients cannot refrigerate their medicines. Most people cannot so much as flush their toilets. 

Within days after the hurricane, an exotic dancers club had electricity before the island’s medical center. With bribes and coupons for freebies at the joint, corrupt energy utility workers connected the night club to the grid. None of them face criminal investigations.

No gym, no work, no errands. Nothing to look forward to doing each day. No need to make plans the night before, because there is nothing to be accomplished. 

Access to cash is difficult since few ATM’s are working and the lines to get into a bank hover around a 2-3 hour wait, usually under a merciless sun.

Armed gangs have been holding up persons at their homes, even in closed and guarded neighborhoods, stealing generators and fuel.

The looting and robberies forced the governor to impose an indefinite curfew whereby all citizens cannot be on the roads from 7 pm to 5 am. Violations of it entail a $500 fine or six months in jail. 

While staying at a plush hotel, the governor told its citizens that it will take 6 months to a year for electricity to be completely reestablished.

The government officials take turns announcing in the ONE radio station that “there is sufficient gasoline for everyone”. Yet, when you do find a gas station that was not destroyed by the hurricane and it has fuel for sale, there is a 2-mile line of cars to get serviced. Then, after a 2-3 hour wait to get to the pump, the attendant will only sell you $20 worth of gasoline since they want to “serve everyone.” The problem is that $20.00 worth of gasoline does not even fill up a quart of a tank. Bear in mind that a gallon of regular gasoline hovers around $3.00.

The lines to purchase fuel are 5-6 hours long in the sweltering heat.

There is no public transportation accessible. In the densely populated areas, the mass transit was not efficient before the hurricane. Today, it is non-existent because of the lack of electricity, lack of gasoline and/or lack of diesel.

It doesn’t really matter. There is nowhere to go. Most places are either closed or destroyed.

We have all been forced into seclusion in our homes.

Figuring out how to stay busy requires a huge amount of effort of an already mentally, emotionally and spiritually drenched soul. 

It occurred to me that I could spend my days at the beach. However, I figured out that if drinking water plants are out of service, probably wastewater treatment plants have not even been looked into. Driving close to the main wastewater plant in San Juan, the scent across one of the bay’s tributaries confirmed my suspicion: the raw sewage is being discharged everywhere. The beach thus does not offer a feasible respite from the misery. Interestingly enough, although the medical facilities and sanitary conditions are severely compromised, the government has not warned its citizens that they should abstain from bathing in the beaches. 

As a self-employed attorney, each minute I attempt to fend off many preoccupations that heavily loom in my mind 24/7: when will I be able to work again?

I do sometimes feel gratitude. I feel grateful for the daylight because it alleviates the pain. It frees me from the stark darkness of the night that takes over, with the humming and the exhaust from the power generators.

I know my situation will change in weeks or months, and that my brain’s defense mechanisms will make it so I will start forgetting how miserable these days were. In the alternative, they will be a source of humor, providing enough stories to give a 2-hour stand-up comedy show.

Thank-you all for your help, your support, your love and your prayers. 

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The weeks after the hurricane were but a preamble of something much more ominous that was to come: becoming a tortured targeted individual. Although I had been targeted for two decades, it was not until 2017 that I now realize that the slight electronic torture began, attacking my teeth, balance, and judgment.

The suffering I underwent in the months after the hurricane do not compare to the torture, stalking and PsyOps that the government criminals have put me through since then. Yet overcoming adversity after such an overwhelming event prepared me for what was to come.

As targeted individuals, we have survived atrocious, unfathomable situations that the average person would not have the courage and strength to bear. Events that have forced us to be craftier, more creative, and resourceful. Tragic experiences that have transformed many of us into mightier, fearless individuals.

Like J.K Rowling said: “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

Albeit the unprecedented strife that Hurricane Maria perpetrated upon my life, it also taught me fearlessness, reinvention, and resilience: indispensable tools in the fight for freedom I am committed to.

And for that, I am grateful.