The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Staff, Wire Reports

Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 03:55 PM

San Juan Mayor: People Are Beginning To Die In Puerto Rico As Humanitarian Crisis Deepens Due To Maria

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz says Puerto Rico's humanitarian crisis is beginning to take a deadly toll on the island.

"It's life or death," San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz told CBS News Tuesday morning of the situation in the US territory. "People are starting to die already. We need to get our shit together because people are dying. People are really dying. I've put them in the ambulances when they're gasping for air.

All across the island, a feeling of helplessness and desperation is beginning to grip residents like Yesenia Gomez, a San Juan kitchen worker who told The Associated Press "We're in God's hands," as she spent hours searching for a cell phone signal to contact her mother in the Dominican Republic.

There is "sheer pain in people’s eyes," Cruz told the Washington Post. "They are kind of glazed. Not because of what has happened, but because of the difficulty of what will come."

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told the Washington Post that the island is "essentially devastated. Complete destruction of the power infrastructure, severe destruction of the housing infrastructure, food and water are needed."