SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that more than 11,000 homes were heavily damaged by flooding due to the Hurricane Hortense that swept through the island here at the beginning of September.

Residents and Puerto Rico independence activists both charge that government policies made the effects worse.

Two weeks after the hurricane, 1,300 residents in Mayaguez and parts of Aguada and Añasco were still without electricity. José Valentín, president of the power authority workers union, known as UTIER, its Spanish-language acronym, stated that repair efforts were hampered by inadequate resources.

In Puerto Nuevo, a hard-hit area of San Juan, residents said that repair funds had arrived relatively rapidly, but they were inadequate.

Leticia Díaz, 72, showed Militant reporters how high water had risen in her home, close to two feet. Mattresses, her refrigerator, and most of her furniture were damaged beyond repair. "I had to wait more than five hours to get the aid," Díaz stated. "They didn't offer us even a glass of water while they were drinking Coca-Cola on ice. These people have no humanity.

"I've already spent the money they gave me," she said, "and it won't cover nearly enough."

Díaz is a retired Selective Service worker. A painting of Luis Muñoz Marín, opponent of independence for Puerto Rico and one of the architects of the current commonwealth status, was hanging on her wall. She said the biggest problem was there was "no plan. They should have things organized when something like this happens."

Other residents said that they completed the forms for government assistance in less than two hours. But most said the flooding damage was severe and the aid not enough.

Julio Muriente, president of the New Puerto Rican Independence Movement (formerly Puerto Rican Socialist Party), wrote in the September 26 edition of the weekly that the electrical energy and aqueduct system has fallen down and the country paralyzed.

"The passing of Hurricane Hortense ," he noted, "shows once again the extraordinary fragility of the infrastructure, the absence of urban planning and the impact of deforestation in the mountainous regions of the country. "More than a natural disaster," Muriente said, "Hortense was a social disaster."

The hurricane, the independence leader noted, "is not responsible for the flooding of whole neighborhoods built in zones that were known before hand were flood-prone. Hortense is not responsible for the many landslides that occurred in areas of higher altitude that were stripped of forests indiscriminately, eliminating their natural protection."

Muriente, like other independentistas, pointed out that the colonial system in Puerto Rico is responsible for the miserable social conditions and deteriorating infrastructure, which multiplied the effects of hurricane Hortense many times over.  
 
 
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