CLEVELAND, Ohio - More than six months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico, displaced residents are moving to the American mainland, including more than 1,200 families to the Cleveland and Lorain areas.
"The palm trees on the streets are recovering faster than the people," said Lorain City Councilman Angel Arroyo, who has taken supplies and organizing aid to the island since the Sept. 20 storm.
Among those who recently moved to Cleveland or Lorain, many expressed frustration with waiting to get their storm-damaged homes repaired and made livable again. Some were willing to do the work themselves, but lacked the materials to do so. They also complained that jobs were hard to find.
While most of the island residents have decided to stay, tens of thousands have opted to leave.
A report by CNN estimated that 179,000 flew from Puerto Rico to the United States since Sept. 20. Puerto Rico's education officials say so many students have left the island that 283 schools will close.
Since last may May, schools have lost 38,762 students and half of the island's schools are operating at 60 percent of capacity.
Those who settled in the Cleveland and Lorain areas are adjusting, while many have moved in with family and friends, about 200 were still living in motels awaiting housing.
Nearly 1,000 families have settled in Cleveland. About 200 families have moved into the Lorain area.
Following are the stories of four people who left their old lives behind to move to the mainland. They face problems with language, housing, employment and transportation but are being helped by a network of Hispanic agencies, volunteer groups and churches in Northeast Ohio.
The Spanish American Committee of Cleveland has been assisting families from Puerto Rico assimilate in their new home. So far, they have helped more than 950 families relocate and more come every day.
Damaged hospitals meant Yahaira Vega had to leave
Yahaira Vega has been battling medical problems for more than a decade. After Hurricane Maria destroyed her apartment and damaged the island's hospitals, her doctors advised her to go to the mainland.
Vega's complicated heart problems, diabetes and thyroid cancer required more than the hospitals there could give.
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She said the conditions in Puerto Rico were so poor that she feared she would not be able to get to a hospital in time if she had a heart attack.
"It's terrible there still," she said. "Traffic is awful. It's very hard to get around especially outside of San Juan.
Vega, 32, first flew to Miami on Oct. 5, and after talking with friends and caregivers, she moved to Cleveland where was introduced to the Cleveland Clinic.
A social worker from the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland helped her find an apartment in Cleveland through the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.She said she will never forget the day Maria hit her home in Caguas, Puerto Rico.
"It felt like an earthquake. Everything was shaking. My apartment was on the second floor and water was coming in through the windows. I picked up my dog and went into the bathroom and held onto him while listening to the wind."
She could feel the air pressure building up inside the apartment and soon the windows exploded outward.
"The noise from the wind was so loud," she said. "And the water kept pouring in. Soon the apartment was flooded. The roof of our building just tore off."
She said after the storm subsided, she looked toward a small, nearby town and was horrified to see nothing.
"The whole town was just crushed."
Her mother and sister remain on the island, trying to restore order in their lives. Vega said she will have to return some time to get her medical records and college information so she can continue to get a teaching degree, but she will not stay.
"This is my home now," she said.
Betty Garcia left a successful career
Betty Garcia is frustrated, but she hides it beneath a smiling face.
In Puerto Rico, she was a private investigator employed by a firm to conduct investigations on people and businesses. She went undercover at a pharmaceutical company suspected of fraud.
Her common law husband, Luis Martinez, was a licensed electrician. Life with him and their two children was good.
Then came Hurricane Maria.
Betty Garcia, a refugee from Puerto Rico, came here to the Cleveland area after Hurricane Maria totally destroyed their home, at Denison UCC Church, in Cleveland, Ohio on March 27, 2018. (Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer).
"I'll never forget that night," she said through a translator. "There were tremors, the ground itself shook. We thought our house was ready for it, but the wind tore off our roof. The light bulbs exploded from the air pressure caused the wind. The walls shook. Our windows to blew out from the inside. The water was rushing in."
Garcia, 40, and her family fled to the safety of a nearby relative's home and prayed as Maria erased the lives they knew.
In the Cleveland area she and Martinez have lived out of a motel room as both look for work so they can move into an apartment before the federal relocation money runs out. They are waiting until they have a home before sending for their children.
Hampered by a lack of transportation, poor English skills and Martinez' medical problems, Garcia has had a hard time finding a job. But she tries every day.
"She's learning English," said Sonia Matos, who works with the Spanish American Committee, which has helped resettle more than 950 families."
Betty applied for a job as a home health care worker, but it fell through because of her language problems," Matos said.
Matos said most of the people who have relocated here also speak English, but Garcia is not one of them.
"She's working hard to learn English, but it is difficult on top of all the stresses she faces," Matos said.
Martinez has been hospitalized for a brain aneurysm and heart problems since they arrived here on Dec. 4, Garcia said. He has also battled a crippling depression.
"After all he has accomplished, he is now here trying to start over again," Garcia said. "And then to have health issues on top of everything else is just very difficult. We miss our children (Anivette, 14 and Anibal, 20) but we have nowhere for them to live."
Matos said Garcia, like many of the people her group has been working with, has a hard time adjusting to being on the receiving end of government assistance.
"These are proud people," Matos said. "They had a good life before the hurricane and now it's all gone. We are helping them get food stamps, welfare, jobs and trying to get them places to live. They are not used to asking for help."
Stephanie Rivera puts wedding on hold
Stephanie Rivera and her fiancee were making wedding plans last year when Hurricane Maria hit Ponce, Puerto Rico, and destroyed any plans the couple had. Her fiancee, Eric Ortiz, had moved to Lorain in 2016 and they were deciding whether to live in Lorain or Puerto Rico after they were married.
The storm made the decision much easier.
They now share an apartment in Lorain and are starting new lives.
Stephanie Rivera, a former private investigator in Puerto Rico, is now making a new life in Lorain. (Michael Sangiacomo / Plain Dealer)
Rivera, 26, said a wedding is still in their future, but first they have to settle in. Ortiz works in a factory and Rivera, who arrived March 15, is looking for work.
Rivera said their wedding will probably take place in Puerto Rico, but Lorain will be their home. She said her parents are rebuilding their home on the island, but it is going slow.
Rivera had a good job, two good jobs, actually in Puerto Rico. She had recently been certified to grind lenses for eyeglasses for a company on the island. She also worked in the customer care department of a company that maintains and repairs swimming pools. Her father worked in the same business, cleaning swimming pools. Both lost their jobs there after the hurricane.
Her friends left one by one, to go to places like Connecticut, Florida and Ohio. They sent back word that those places were much better than Puerto Rico.She first moved to Lorain in late October, but returned to Puerto Rico in January to help her parents. She had hoped that the employment situation on the island had improved, but it had not.
"There are no jobs of any kind in Puerto Rico," she said. "I decided I would return to Lorain."
She is taking English lessons at El Centro Servicios Sociales in Lorain and plans to start looking for a job, though not having a car makes it difficult because of the poor public transportation in the city.
"I can't afford to take a taxi back and forth to work everyday," she said. "I hope I can get a job at a factory somewhere close by."
Alfredo Alicea, from barber to Walmart worker
Alfredo Alicea and his family stayed in San Juan, Puerto Rico for about 45 days after the hurricane, but soon realized there was no future there.
So Alicea and his girlfriend, Kalianie Gomez, and their four children took what money they had and bought one-way tickets to the United States and settled in Lorain.
Alfredo Alicea misses his life as a barber in Puerto Rico, but is happy to have a job at Walmart in Lorain. (Michael Sangiacomo / Plain Dealer)
It has not been easy, since they arrived in Lorain on Nov. 2.
They lived with relatives for a while but ended up in a homeless shelter for a month.
Meanwhile, Alicea, 24, tried to find a job and a place to live for his family. He and Gomez have a three-year-old child together and are raising her three children - ages 14, 12 and 8 -- from a previous relationship.
"We didn't lose everything, but we lost a lot," he said. "We tried to stay in San Juan but it was getting hard to find food for the kids and they were not going to school. We finally decided to take a chance in Lorain."
His gamble paid off. In late February, they moved from the homeless shelter into a modest apartment in the city. And, after months of working odd jobs and filling out applications for employment, he was hired at the local Walmart.
"I lucked out," he said. "I have a job and benefits. It was hard for a while, but things are getting better."
Alicea was a barber barber in San Juan, a good one, he said.
"I really miss it," he said. "Here, they will not accept by barber's license. I would have to start all over again here to get a new one. When I get situated, I may start over, but right now I just need to work."
Despite his difficulties, Alicea has no plans to return to Puerto Rico.
"I know what I left there and I do not plan on going back," he said. "I want to make it work here."
JUST THE FACTS:
-- Hurricane Maria, with 155 mph winds, was the strongest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 80 years.
-- The storm knocked out power for 95 percent of the island (3.4 million people) and limited access to drinking water. As of early April, more than 100,000 households or businesses still lacked electricity. About 99 percent of the country has running water.
-- Officially, 64 people died in the hurricane. But reports from the New York Times and others put the number at more than 1,000. Deaths from such things as pneumonia and sepsis infections increased considerably in the weeks after the storm when compared with similar time periods in 2015 and 2016.
-- U.S. aid for Hurricane Maria recovery efforts, much of it which has not yet been given, is reported to be about $18 billion, far short of the $90 billion local recovery officials say is needed.
-- Hundreds of thousands of people have left the island since Hurricane Maria. About 1,200 are settling in Northeast Ohio.
-- The 2015 U.S. Census said that there are 30,240 people of Puerto Rican descent in Cleveland; 4,668 in Lorain and 110,348 in Ohio.
-- For more information on helping the displaced families, contact Jahaira Soto at the Spanish American Committee at (216) 961-2100.