What Do You Want to Know About the Puerto Rico Crisis?

Reporter AJ Vicens is covering the aftermath of Hurricane Maria from San Juan.

Guaynabo, Puerto Rico AJ Vicens/Mother Jones

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What does a one-day food ration look like in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria?

It’s a small fruit cup, a 7.5-ounce can of corned beef hash, four cookies, and a pack of peanut butter and cheddar crackers. That’s what some residents are expected to survive on each day as the island struggles to recover from the hurricane’s devastating effects

AJ Vicens / Mother Jones

Since Friday, one of Mother Jones reporters, AJ Vicens, has been on the ground there, documenting how residents are coping with the disaster, as well as the excruciatingly slow—or, in some places, non-existent—recovery efforts. Two weeks after Maria, 95 percent of the island’s 3.4 million residents still don’t have electricity. Fifty-five percent don’t have access to drinking water. People wait in line for hours just to get gas. Electricity poles litter the street like matchboxes. “Green,” decomposing bodies flow into a funeral home. And in small towns like Ciales, AJ reports, “many homes were either wiped from the earth or rendered uninhabitable, gutted of everything the families had inside.” 

In one dispatch, AJ follows the mayor of Cabo Rojo, Bobby Ramírez Kurtz, as he’s conducting a meeting entirely by flashlight. Kurtz says he’s determined to help not only residents of his city, but also Puerto Ricans elsewhere on the island. “I don’t care what I have to do to get the things for my people,” he says.

AJ will continue to report from Puerto Rico and help shed light on the situation for our readers. What questions do you have for him while he’s there? Let’s see what he can investigate for you. 





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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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