SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio man is wasting no time returning to the island of Puerto Rico, just weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory.
Chris Mackenzie returned from Puerto Rico this weekend, but he’s already packing up his bag to make another trip next weekend. Last week, he flew in search of his mother-in-law Lydia Maldonado, after enduring a week of not hearing about her status following Hurricane Maria.
He was not ready for what he found on the island. “Once you got into the town, no stop lights, everything is dark, people fending for themselves,” he said. “The first gas station I saw had a line as far as the eye can see.”
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He saw huge patches of vegetation gone, debris all over and teetering power poles on top of the open roads.
He and his brother-in-law finally reached Maldonado in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. “When we saw her mom, she was incredibly happy,” he said.
They then heard the story of how Maldonado had survived the storm.
The 71-year-old was still too overwhelmed to tell the story herself, so her daughter, Liliana Mackenzie, shared it instead.
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“She was completely horrified,” Mackenzie said. "She went to stay with a friend who was closer inland and survived by holding onto the doors. “The wind was so strong the pressure was pulling the doors open.”
Everything around the home flooded, and waters reached fences that are 6-feet high. But the worst part came after the storm, when Maldonado spent the nights in total darkness around her. “She was isolated for seven days until Chris got there,” she said. “She spent the nights looking at photos of her family not being able to say she was OK.”
It had been a week and Chris Mackenzie said he saw no one helping the people in the isolated town. “The water she was drinking -- it had been through a Brita filter but it still had a color to it,” he said.
He arrived with generators, water filters, radios and other supplies. It’s a cash-only society and only a few banks are open.
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They left a few days later, waiting hours at the airport to check in. “They have two computers with internet. They line everyone up by what flight you are on,” he said. “It took us four hours to get in, in 100-degree heat. They handwrite everything and then they go to one computer that has internet to look you up.”
Maldonado is safe in San Antonio, but Mackenzie, who made connections with strangers he met while trying to get information about their families in other parts of the island is going back with more supplies. He’s taking solar-powered chargers, radios, fans and water filters.
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“It's going to be months and months before the electrical grid can get back up,” he said.
The family is part of the Puerto Rican Heritage Society, which will be helping raise funds Saturday at 10 a.m. at Buena Vista Theater at University of Texas San Antonio Downtown Campus, along with former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros.
