By José A. Iglesias
13 October 2017
(Miami Herald) – Three weeks after Hurricane Maria ransacked Puerto Rico, mounds of soaking, animal-infested garbage still line streets. Public health experts say every day that the debris remains, the risk of an epidemic grows.

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Kamille Camacho, of Iniciativa Comunitaria, says, “I feel helpless because I want to be able to do something right at the moment. Something that when I get home I feel assured that I took care of a problem or I can get to it. But the reality is that, unfortunately, we live in a place where everything is tied up in bureaucracy. Everything is about protocol. And while those people are over there, sitting in A/C, there are people who are dying. People who don’t have access to even a bottle of water. Who are not able to go out on the street and seek help. Who are here, stuck like the puddles of water. They are here for weeks in the rubble and no one comes to do anything about it.”

Experts fear looming health crisis in Puerto Rico