ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Students and staff at the University of Central Florida will take a moment of silence on Tuesday to reflect on those who passed away during Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017.
The Category 4 storm devastated Puerto Rico and left neighborhoods destroyed and left millions without power for months. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives.
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“The reconstruction process in Puerto Rico is still not done and this is an ongoing issue, so events like this provides awareness that usually when disasters happen, they get off the radar of people for a couple of months,” Dr. Fernando I. Rivera said.
Rivera is the director of the Puerto Rico research hub at UCF. He said he didn’t expect to be talking about another hurricane hitting Puerto Rico while the island continues to recover from Maria.
Puerto Rico also had a series of earthquakes at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.
“Talk about the cascading effects of all these events continue to happen on the island it seems that the island doesn’t seem to catch a break,” Rivera said.
Rivera remembers seeing an influx of Puerto Rican students in 2018, many who migrated to Central Florida following Maria.
He said it’s important to educate the community about recovery and reconstruction.
“I think the message is that the people in Puerto Rico have been resilient, but this cannot be a dispense of government not fulfilling their duties and I think we need to make people accountable for the things that have happened in Puerto Rico as well,” Rivera said.
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