Austin Puerto Rico Culture Center reacts to devastating Puerto Rico earthquakes
AUSTIN, Texas - There have been several, destructive earthquakes in Puerto Rico in recent days, the latest happening Tuesday morning.
Austin's Puerto Rico Culture Center is doing what they can to help keep people in our area informed about what's happening on the island.
"It's like when does it stop, we don't know so it's a matter of keeping everybody clam trying to figure out what we can do to help to help our people and to help Puerto Rico as well,” said center director Ana Maria Tekina-Eiru Maynard.
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Following the recent destruction in Puerto Rico Tekina-Eiru said she is doing what she can to keep people here with loved ones on the island informed and calm,
"Just you know calming stating the facts so that we don't alarm or create hysteria then is necessary,” said Tekina-Eiru who has plenty of friends and family on the island herself, even some in the various areas where damage is being reported.
"A wonderful family that are like second parents to me, they live right in Guayama and so they were the first persons that I called,” said Tekina-Eiru.
The most recent earthquake designated as a 6.4 hit Tuesday morning and was strong enough to cause an island-wide blackout. Tekina-Eiru said it's tools like Facebook that are key when it comes to getting in touch with those on the island.
“Because of social media people are like ‘ok who's out there,’ ‘where’s everybody,’ and people are telling their friends and family we're doing fine everything is ok,” said Tekina-Eiru.
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Tekina-Eiru suspects the recovery process to take a while as many areas are still recovering from Hurricane Maria which tore through the island back in 2017.
"I know lots of people who still have homes whose roofs were never fixed and a variety of things they just never recovered," said Tekina-Eiru.
Aside from homes and buildings taking damage popular nature sites also took a hit The island's natural wonder Punta Ventana was reduced to rubble.
"It's gone, it just collapsed now there's this rock formation a big gap and now what's left in the ocean," said Tekina-Eiru.
Tekina-Eiru said she will continue to do what she can to keep people here calm and informed as they work on a way to send help to the island. The biggest hurdle when it comes to sending aid to Puerto Rico is getting the aid there. Right now the culture center said they are working on this before they organize relief collection.