One month after Maria, a crisis still rages in rural Puerto Rico

As of Thursday, one-in-three residents of Puerto Rico lacked running water, and only about 47% of cellular towers were operational. Meanwhile, the official death toll, currently at 48, keeps creeping higher, with 109 islanders still reported missing. (Photo: Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) — A month after Hurricane Maria battered this mountainous stretch of central Puerto Rico, recovery remained elusive along Highway 152, where 82-year-old Carmen Diaz Lopez lives alone in a home that’s one landslide away from plummeting into the muddy creek below.

Without electricity, and without family members to care for her, she’s become dependent on the companionship of a few neighbors who stop by periodically. But a collapsed bridge has made it challenging to even communicate with her friend across the creek, so she’s lived for the most part in solitude, passing the electricity-less days singing “Ave Maria” and classic Los Panchos songs to herself, lighting candles each night so she can find the bathroom.