Editor's Note: Above, a Headliner Surfer audio-slide show presentation highlights Deltona resident Zenaida Denizac's trip to Puerto Rico back in October, with relief supplies generated from a GoFundMe account and her frustration with ongoing suffering with thousands still in the dark. The story below updates the initial Headline Surfer story published Oct. 9, 2017, on Denizac's trip: Zenaida Denizac of Deltona uses social media to solicit revenue for Hurricane Maria-devastated Mayaguez, Puerto Rico where she's from.
DELTONA, Fla. -- More than six months after Hurricane Maria walloped Puerto Rico, thousands still remain without electrical power, and that has Zenaida Denizac feeling frustrated, even with reports there may be the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
"The people of Puerto Rico have suffered far too long, but the federal government says progress is being made," Denizac told Headline Surfer earlier this week. "Imagine how this would be if the residents of Florida were without power this long!"
And that helps to explain the mass exodus of Puerto Ricans from the island in the days, weeks and months that have followed since Maria, a category 4 hurricane, made landfall on Sept. 20.
we were covering this area, a desperate father asked for diapers for his two month old baby. He took us to what was left of his home.
We provided him with diapers and a box with a week's worth of groceries.
Seeing the crib, the soaked teddy Asbear and the total destruction was heartbreaking.
Feds: 100,000-plus Puerto Rican utility customers still without power
News on the extent of outages is more anecdotal with infrequent coverage as toPuerto Rico's recovery, espcially in the last couple of months.
But the general consensus as reported by the Associated Press via ABC News on March 20, exactly six monthjs from Maria's omnnslught, is that power has been restored to 93 percent of customers, but more than 100,000 are still without electricity.
It could be until May before power is fully restored, Justo Gonzalez, former interim director for Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority, told the AP, adding, the hurricane destroyed two-thirds of Puerto Rico's power distribution system.
Denizac, so overwhelmed by the generosity to her GoFundMe page, and having seen the devastation up close, wrote the following on her Facebook page when she returned to Deltona: "God assigns people to your vision and your destiny. The people that will walk with you have been chosen from above. Therefore, not everyone will go where you are going. To those that have answered the call, THANK YOU."
Denizac, so overwhelmed by the generosity to her GoFundMe page, and having seen the devastation up close, wrote the following on her Facebook page when she returned to Deltona: "God assigns people to your vision and your destiny. The people that will walk with you have been chosen from above. Therefore, not everyone will go where you are going. To those that have answered the call, THANK YOU."
Denizac, 57, herself a former Deltona city commissioner, one-time mayoral candidate and a registered Republican, put the blame squarely on the backs of the politicians in San Juan, for Puerto Rico's dire situation.
"As I reflect, I have come to the conclusion that Puerto Rico wasn't just destroyed by Hurricane Maria," Denizac said. "This destruction began many years ago by corrupt politicians in the island, from both political parties. They are as responsible as Hurricane Maria, and they both have changed people's destiny forever."