Puerto Rico’s Slow Hurricane Recovery Is Suffocating Small Business

This fall’s hurricane season has been rough on Jesús Vázquez’s family business outside San Juan. Their 35-year-old ice factory and adjacent laundromat hasn’t had power since Hurricane Irma, which hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 6, two weeks before Hurricane Maria devastated the island. And the family’s rental property business is losing roughly $35,000 a month, because it’s not charging rent to tenants who lack power, lost their jobs, or can’t reopen their own businesses.

Vázquez says he’s spending three times as much on diesel generators as he did on electricity from the island’s bankrupt power utility, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa). Most of his clients are small—convenience stores, restaurants, bars—and many haven’t reopened. “The ideal word to describe the overall situation is ‘catastrophic,’ ” he says. More than two months since Maria, “you realize things are not improving, particularly for small businesses.”