NBA Star Talks About The Disaster In Puerto Rico

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

More than a week after Hurricane Maria's catastrophic passage through Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican handball player JJ Barea, former model Zuleyka Rivera, explained with the help of journalist Chris Ballard in the following first-person article for Sports Illustrated his impression of the serious situation that crosses his native land. We reproduce part of the text.

The only way I can describe it is as if a bomb had exploded.

The Puerto Rico where I grew up was an island of beauty. Clear and blue water, golden sand, always green. But when our flight landed in San Juan last Tuesday, I barely recognized my home. The sand was gone. Trees were crushed. The water was ugly, brownish brown.

Even before Hurricane Maria hit, I knew it would be disastrous. In Puerto Rico, our infrastructure is not like in the United States. [A small storm comes] and electricity is lost for 24 hours. We really have been lucky these past 20 years. The hurricanes receded at the last second and only hit us a little, or drifted completely. Like a few weeks ago, when Irma changed course. I was on the island at the time, preparing for the worst.

This time I was in Dallas, starting training with the Mavericks, the team I've been a part of for eight of my 11 NBA seasons. It was difficult being so far away. After Maria made landfall on September 19 as a category four storm, I was unable to communicate with anyone for days. Neither my friends nor my parents.

I needed to do something. Mark Cuban, owner of the Mavericks, had texted me after the storm, asking about my family. Mark and I have a great relationship. I sent him a text message: "Would it be a very crazy idea that we could get a plane to take a lot of things to Puerto Rico?"

[Cuban loaned the plane to Barea, who traveled to San Juan with a group of friends and tens of miles of aid pounds]

Four hours after takeoff, we arrived. Every year I return to Puerto Rico with my family after the NBA season, but I've never seen it like this. The airport was in chaos. San Juan was in chaos. There was no traffic, just people running. It was crazy.

That night, we returned to Dallas, having tripled our numbers. We brought my parents, my grandmother and some little cousins. My father stayed. He runs my foundation and they have work to do right now. We also brought back the mother of one of my best friends; her son is about to have twins in Miami and had to stay there. And, just before we left, an older couple arrived. She was supposed to have a transplant in Maryland. I wondered: Could we take her there? So we spoke to the pilot and he boarded with us.

While in Puerto Rico, I saw signs of help from the United States. But let me tell you: It is not enough. People will not return to work for six months, perhaps a year. It will be two years before everything returns to normal.

And this is the message that the people of Puerto Rico wanted me to take back to the United States. Everything is very bad there. Very very bad. An emergency situation.

On Friday, we return. The same flight plan, another load. I can't go this time because I can't leave the team, but my wife and friends will. We can not wait. We are all American citizens, after all. We have to lift each other up.