In Morovis, 72-year-old Samuel Rosado Ríos has spent a year trying to get water and electricity connected to his home without success. He is now appealing for help, tired of living without basic services. The land is an inheritance from his grandmother, and the family house was destroyed by Hurricane María, which also took with it the deed and the water and electricity bills he had stored there.
He says he waits for rain, hoping that water falls from the sky, to fill the containers he keeps
Without those documents, LUMA Energy and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (AAA) require evidence he no longer has before connecting the services. In the meantime, Rosado Ríos survives with an electric generator he was given as a gift and cooks on a charcoal stove. He says he waits for rain, hoping that water falls from the sky, to fill the containers he keeps, while a friend helps him fetch water from a spring, which he calls a chorro.
He describes his reality as opening the faucet and having no water come out, and spending the nights in darkness.