![]() It was easy to understand why the Central Island Coordination Task Force met three times a day. ![]() Many communities in the region were cut off from food and water distribution points, doctors, family, phone service…from everywhere. The mountainous terrain, while beautiful, exacerbated every issue. The rainy season worsened road conditions as additional rain brought new mudslides faster than people could clear them. Without electricity, generators powering the water treatment facilities ceased working. The 155 mile per hour winds snapped the electrical poles, wood and concrete alike. The problems affecting the central portion of Puerto Rico were interwoven on every level imaginable. With fuel transported via shopping cart, the residents were able to refuel the vehicles and pick up the pallets of FEMA food and water delivered by the helicopters and transport it back to the community. The people of Rio Abajo, a community in Utuado, put their ingenuity to use by creating a pulley system with the cart to span the void left by the collapsed bridge.Īfter identifying the shopping cart as the best way to get the fuel across the river, members of Homeland Security Investigations Special Response Teams loaded the cart with the gasoline and sent it to the other side. How did we deliver more than 3,500 pounds of food and water to an isolated community in central Puerto Rico cut off from the rest of the island due to a collapsed bridge? The obvious answer is by helicopter, but when the only safe place to land is a mile away from the town and the vehicles needed to transport the supplies are out of gas, what then?Ī shopping cart turned out to be the key.īut this was no ordinary shopping cart.
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