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Eleven days after Hurricane Fiona, many still without power in Puerto Rico

WNY residents with ties to Puerto Rico say it's been difficult to get in contact with loved ones. There are still 241,000 people who don't have power.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — It's been eleven days since Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico, almost five years to the day since the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria.

There are several Puerto Ricans who have since moved to Western New York, but still have family on the island working to clean up and rebuild once again.

Puerto Rico is in a major clean-up mode right now, but thousands of people still don't have any water or electricity.

They say they are frustrated and they are tired. Five years ago when Hurricane Maria hit, millions of dollars in aid were sent to the US territory. That's something that so far people, like Alice Ayala, aren't seeing this time around.

Ayala moved to Buffalo with her family after Hurricane Maria. She said she knows exactly what it's like to be in those situations.

"It's right now the worst experience that I have had, Hurricane Maria. The situation after that was horrible. It was like you were in a nightmare. See all your island destroyed. The people are without houses, without power, without water. All the places you usually buy food were destroyed. It was horrible," Ayala said.

Ayala still has family and friends who live in Puerto Rico. She said it's been incredibly difficult to get in contact with them since Fiona hit eleven days ago. There are still 241,000 people in Puerto Rico now who still don't have any power.

Alice said the best way to help the people of Puerto Rico is to help them directly, like through nonprofits, like Hispanic Federation.

About 16% of Puerto Rico remains in the dark and about 20% don't have water.

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