Antonia Ortega of East Hartford never imagined that a vacation to Puerto Rico would turn into days of trying to survive.
She left for the island on Sept. 14, just a few days before Hurricane Maria made landfall on the island.
“You go on vacation and you want to take nice pictures of fun places, but take pictures of devastation,” she said.
Instead, the photos Ortega took while on the island include trees completely folded over, traffic backed up for miles from people wanting to get out of harm’s way and a washing machine toppled over on the side of the road. She said the washing machine made its way from a family member’s home.
“The aluminum from people’s roofs was just flying in the air. They looked like paper towels,” she described to NBC Connecticut in an exclusive interview. “It was so strong they would hit the trees and they were flapping.”
Ortega rode out the hurricane in Coamo, a town on the southeast part of the island. She and her husband barely had any food or water.
She showed us video of the brook behind the home. The flooding turned it into a small river. There was a mudslide nearby.
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She said the situation there was so dire she used rainwater to shower.
“At one point I tell my husband because I (had) seen people on the road and there was water coming from some rocks and I said to him, ‘Can we stop? I want to get some water from there?’” she said. “But my husband is like, ‘No because they’re already getting it it’s from the soil, so its dirty,’ so we just kept going.”
Ortega was supposed to return to her East Hartford home on Sept. 23, but was stuck there until Thursday morning. She and her husband along with their three puppies had to sleep overnight in the airport.
While she’s relieved to be home, she leaves with sadness and concern for her family and island.
“It broke my heart when the plane took off and we were able to see the whole island and how devastating it looked. It just looked like it was a forest fire. Because there’s no – when I tell you there’s no trees left, literally nothing. No grass, no trees, no nothing.”
One of her concerns: How will Puerto Rico recover from the devastation?
She said during her time on the island, she noticed a lack of federal aid on the island.
