Mitch Perry
She’s a Democrat, he’s a Republican, but Janet Cruz and retired U.S. Air Force Col. E.J. Otero are transcending the political divide to help the people of Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
With the vast majority of Puerto Ricans still without power and without all of the comforts that go with that — lights, air-conditioning, television and Wi-Fi, to name a few — the two Hillsborough residents came together at a news conference Monday to announce that a barge containing 500,000 pounds of goods donated by Tampa Bay area residents and companies will soon leave for the island.
“The public discourse maybe at an all-time low, but Tampa Bay has come together,” Cruz said inside a warehouse at Homeland Intelligence Technologies (HIT).
HIT is a Tampa-based defense contracting firm that founder Richard Trela offered Otero and his girlfriend, Brenda Irizarry, to use as a station to collect a variety of goods to send to Puerto Rico.
Trela invented prepackaged disaster relief pallets for easy transport on and off the barges that will take the goods to the island.
“Something like this, as simple as it seems, is vital because when it gets to the other side, you want to make sure it’s secure,” he said in explaining how user-friendly the new pallets are. “You don’t want it sitting on the dock, with saran wrap around it, and there’s a generator in there, and it doesn’t end up making it to its location.”
The pallets are stocked individually with specific items — food, water, medical supplies, baby powder, solar power equipment, communications equipment, tools and hygiene supplies.
In the weeks following Maria, Otero created Course of Action PR, under the umbrella of the Course of Action Foundation to support those affected by the storm. Since then, it has sent goods by commercial and military aircraft, small planes and boats to deliver to parts of Puerto Rico.
Cruz, the Democratic Leader in the Florida House who has already announced her candidacy for the County Commission, went in one day to visit Otero at the warehouse, and asked him what he needed. He replied that a barge to send hundreds of thousands of pounds of goods would come in handy.
She quickly got on the telephone and Cruz was soon able to receive donations from the Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Yankees, AMSCOT, and the India Festival (Smita Patel and Dr. C.J. Patel from the Festival attended the news conference).
“We cannot do this forever,” admits Otero, a Puerto Rican native and former congressional candidate who says that he hopes to help with the transitioning of the tens of thousands of people who have already left the island to move to Florida.
Cruz says she wants to expedite the certification for the Puerto Rican teachers who will be coming to Florida, particularly in the Orlando region.
Otero says that the donations to his group have been dwindling in recent weeks after a huge outpouring of generosity from the Tampa Bay area. Cruz says that’s concerning, considering that two-thirds of the island still is without electricity.
“If you see the infrastructure and see what’s happening over there, I believe that these folks that are leaving on Jet Blue will probably never go home except maybe to visit in the future because these towns are devastated,” says Cruz, who has visited the island twice since the hurricane and says those experiences have truly given her a new perspective on life.
