AccuWeather raises $50,000 for United Way, adopts town of Patillas, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico continues to suffer unbelievable tragedies from Hurricane Maria, the Category 4 storm that devastated the island on Sept. 20, one of several major damaging hurricanes for the United States this season. The recovery has been very slow with 85% or more of the island still without electricity. But here's some good news:
AccuWeather has already raised over $50,000 for hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Florida, the Gulf Coast and Texas through this United Way donation link, as well as untold amounts through our "How to Help" page.
Now, we're literally going to Puerto Rico to deliver a truckload of another $50,000 worth of supplies with our adoption of the town of Patillas, Puerto Rico.
To help us get our life-saving shipping container to Patillas full of relief supplies, you can donate online. Or, if you happen to live close to AccuWeather HQ in State College, Pennsylvania, you can drop off supplies (see list) at our building. Here's more information:
Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria in September. In response, AccuWeather and Rays of Hope community service initiative, are taking donations to help with those in need.
To illustrate the continuing struggle in Puerto Rico, I've already blogged aerial photos of the island, detailing the damaged infrastructure, including communication towers, solar farms and wind turbine farms like this one:
The slow return of the power infrastructure has been particularly depressing. This image from NASA shows the lights of our adopted town of Patillas, before and one week after Hurricane Maria (click to enlarge):
For the composite map below (click to enlarge) I am using the NASA data to show the entire island pre-Maria, Sept. 27 (1 week later), and Oct. 8-9 (combined -- note that gray areas indicate no data because of clouds. Not surprisingly, the big cities in the south (Ponce) and west (Mayaguez) were doing the best on Oct. 8-9, because they were farther from the storm's fury (it entered the southeastern corner of Puerto Rico). San Juan, the major city in the north, is starting to light up, but most of the rest of the country was still dark.
In fact, due to a piece of equipment failing, the percentage of people without power actually went DOWN last week, from 15 percent to as low as 9 percent, now 13.7 percent (graph by CNN). They list recent bad weather as a partial cause. Because Hurricane Maria stripped the trees of leaves (and then clogged drains with leaves and mud), the island is enduring flooding from less rain than it is used to -- almost like the problem flooding they have in California after a wildfire defoliates trees.
Additional information:
"
Report a Typo
