A hurricane-battered ballfield in one of Puerto Rico's poorest towns became a symbol of progress in the face of tragedy after being restored this summer, five years after Maria swept through. Fiona dealt it another setback.
Brothers Ian, Jahxiel and Isaac Rodríguez run the bases at the damaged baseball park in their neighborhood, Lajas Arriba, in Lajas, Puerto Rico.Brothers Ian, Jahxiel and Isaac Rodríguez run the bases at the damaged baseball park in their neighborhood, Lajas Arriba, in Lajas, Puerto Rico.LAJAS, Puerto Rico — It had been almost exactly five years since Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, destroying the baseball diamond a short walk from Carlos Rodríguez Malavé's house.
Carlos Rodríguez Malavé with his sons Jahxiel, Ian and Isaac. Before Hurricane Fiona damaged their neighborhood ballpark in September, Rodríguez had formed a league for children. He was one of the coaches."It was the most elegant thing you've ever seen," Rodríguez recalled. Neighbors whose homes face the park came out to cheer."We had been waiting five years for that. Ever since Maria.
Hurricane Fiona flooded homes, washed away roads, and tore off roofs in communities across the island. But in some places – like in Rodríguez's neighborhood — heartbreak over the destruction was deepened by the fact that what Fiona destroyed had only recently been rebuilt from the damage Maria had inflicted, and often at great effort.
"It's like we've gone back five years in time," the mayor, Jayson Martínez, said."You can't detain Mother Nature, but seeing our park damaged again so soon after we finished it, that hurt. And the recuperation is going to be the same experience as before. Slow." After all that, the restored baseball park had served as a symbol this summer that despite every setback, Lajas could, and would, continue to take steps toward normalcy.Willie Rivera, a retiree who lives alone in a house facing the ballfield, said that for the four weeks before Fiona that the new floodlights had illuminated the ballpark, evenings in the Lajas Arriba neighborhood had filled with a youthful energy he hadn't felt there in years.
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