On January 7th 2020, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the island of Puerto Rico. Residents who were affected have lost their homes and jobs. In addition, residents of Ponce have discovered something very interesting that can mean something for the future of Puerto Rico.

This isn’t the first event where Puerto Rico has been conflicted with natural disasters. On September 16, 2017 to October 2, 2017 Hurricane Maria, a category five hurricane, arrived and devastated the island of Puerto Rico and the people living there. Killing more than 3,000 people and leaving the country without electricity. And even to this day, people are still affected by Hurricane Maria. The earthquake however, has only injured a couple of people and 1 person has died. 

The people on the island are at an outrage, not only were they affected by the earthquake, but on Saturday, January 18, a group of people in Ponce went live on Facebook and stormed a warehouse full of abandoned supplies. Over 7 million people were watching the live stream. Some of which who were watching were past residents of the island, shocked and angered on the discovery. It has even got Wanda Vazquez, the governor of Puerto Rico to fire Carlos Acevedo, the island’s director of emergency management, and is ordering an investigation.

But what’s going to happen to the families and children that have been affected by the earthquake? Betty Medina Lichtenstein, the head of the organization “Enlace De Familias”, said in an email, “We were recently informed that children from Puerto Rico are being enrolled in Holyoke Public Schools, we also know that families in Puerto Rico are getting their financial resources together to purchase airline tickets to come to this area.” Holyoke, where the majority of the residents living there are Puerto Rican, are getting ready to help the many displaced families from Puerto Rico to live with their friends and families that are in Holyoke.