We Fed an Island Read online

  THE NEWS FROM PUERTO RICO WAS FRUSTRATINGLY SKETCHY. I KNEW there was a crisis but it was hard to assess without being on the ground. Most of the island’s cell phone towers—around 85 percent of the 1,600 towers on Puerto Rico—were down.5 Nobody could find a working Internet or phone connection. After two days of trying to understand the situation, I knew I had to catch the first flight out there. By Saturday, three days after Maria ravaged the island, San Juan airport was only open to military flights. I booked seats on flights, but nothing was moving. I tried to get my hands on a satellite phone, tweeting to the world to see if someone could lend me one. But it wasn’t easy on a weekend, even in Washington, D.C. I called my friend Nate Mook, whose documentary work had taken him across the world and who knew much more about satellite phones than I did. Nate had produced my PBS show, Undiscovered Haiti, and he knew what I meant by the power of food to rebuild lives. Like so many times before, I didn’t have a clear plan in mind, but I wanted to see what was happening.

  “I’m going to bring some cash and solar lamps,” I told him. “What are you doing? Do you want to come?”

  “Yeah!” he shot back.

  We knew that downed communications and electricity would make life difficult, but Puerto Rico was still the United States. It couldn’t be as bad as Haiti. We thought we’d be back by the end of the week.

  We were wrong.

  The next day, Sunday, marked the first day the White House had any contact with a Puerto Rican leader. Vice President Mike Pence called Jenniffer González-Colón, the island’s non-voting member of the House of Representatives. For three days, Donald Trump had said nothing in public, not even a tweet, about the hurricane or its impact on the island. In fact it was Hillary Clinton who was the first leader to make a public statement, on that Sunday, as she tweeted to Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis to send the hospital ship USNS Comfort to Puerto Rico. “These are American citizens,” she implored them, posting a link to photos of islanders wading through waist-deep waters to move through their own streets. Her tweet was liked more than 300,000 times.

  It was the first day a commercial flight landed in San Juan: a single Delta flight. Every other flight ended in failure and simply turned back.

  I was following the news nervously, and I knew I needed to be there. Watching CNN, I only had to look at my wife, Patricia, for her to know what I was thinking. We drove to the REI store to buy solar lamps, water purification pills and survival gear for the hurricane victims, but we really didn’t know what to expect. I just wanted to avoid becoming a problem in a place where people were suffering already. One of our biggest priorities was gathering cash for the trip to buy supplies. Between my wife’s ATM card and my own, I managed to get my hands on $2,000. My executive assistant Daniel Serrano brought me another $1,500.

  I managed to make brief contact with my friend José Enrique Montes, whose small restaurant in Santurce was home to some of the very best food in Puerto Rico. His business was wrecked, with no power and a leaking roof. With his refrigerated food going to waste, in a neighborhood full of hungry people, he did what chefs do: he started cooking. True to his roots and talents, he made the hearty, tasty soup known as sancocho.

  Somewhere between a stew and a thick soup, sancocho is the Caribbean version of the Spanish cocido, brought to the region via the original colonial settlers who passed through the Canary Islands. In the Canaries, the last stop in European territory before the trade winds carried the ships to the Caribbean, sancocho was made with fish. By the time the dish became a favorite of the Caribbean and Latin America, it had shifted to a meat-based stew, often featuring lots of different meats, made with corn and a mix of vegetables. As a way to deliver calories and comfort to storm survivors in large quantities, it was hard to beat sancocho. “When you eat sancocho, you think of your grandmother and it puts a smile on your face,” says José Enrique.

  We booked two flight options for Monday, just in case one of them collapsed. Nate and I had seats on an 8:00 a.m. Delta flight from New York’s JFK Airport direct to San Juan, as well as a Spirit Airlines flight from Baltimore that passed through Fort Lauderdale. We thought about taking an Uber car from D.C. to New York, but chose instead to go to Baltimore for the flight through Florida. We figured that if the flight was canceled, we could always travel to Miami, where I have two restaurants.

  At the airport in Fort Lauderdale, we made a beeline for the ATM machine. The news suggested the Puerto Rican banks were a long way from re-opening, so I needed more cash. But I couldn’t remember what my PINs were, and my cards weren’t working. I called up Patricia back home for help. Fortunately she is the organized and sensible person in my family. With her guidance, I got my hands on another $2,000, which I withdrew in four transactions of $500. The ATMs were not exactly set up for our heavy needs.

  Inside the terminal we watched the news on the airport screens. It was not promising for our journey: San Juan’s airport had lost power. Travelers were stranded inside, in the sweltering heat, sleeping on the floor while waiting for the power and the flights to return. The situation seemed desperate: no food, no water, no air-conditioning, no flights. People were prepared to suffer all that in the hope of getting a seat on the first flight off the island. How bad were the conditions at home for them to do that?

  I tried to call José Enrique but the calls weren’t connecting. I contacted instead one of my Puerto Rico partners to see if he could help set things up for my arrival. Kenny Blatt was one of the investors who helped revive the great Dorado Beach resort, transforming it into the oasis it is today, after decades of decline. My restaurant there, Mi Casa, was one of the jewels of my ThinkFoodGroup businesses. Kenny was in touch with Alberto de la Cruz, the smart entrepreneur who runs Coca-Cola’s bottling operations in Puerto Rico. Alberto let us know that the Puerto Rico governor had put Ramón Leal, the head of the island’s restaurant association, ASORE, in charge of all kitchens on the island. Leal had been working with the governor on a feeding plan for the island since Hurricane Irma, two weeks earlier.

  Our plane was full of worried families trying to rush back to check on their loved ones, or their property, or both. With the communication systems stricken, there was no practical way to find out if family members were alive and well, or to find out if homes were still under water. Despite all the uncertainties of air travel onto an island with no power, the many risks were outweighed by the even greater worries. The only way to be sure was to show up in person.

  For me, this was the start of the challenge of a lifetime. Our plane was one of the first commercial flights to make it into San Juan after the hurricane. We had no idea what to expect and it seemed like the pilot didn’t either. As we sat on the tarmac at Fort Lauderdale, he came out from his cockpit to ask if anyone had a satellite phone they could lend him. The passenger behind us said he did, but it was in his checked luggage. I sorely wished I had found that satellite phone back in Washington.

  “We might have to get your checked bag out,” the pilot said. “Once we are on the ground, we might need to talk to the air traffic control tower with the satellite phone so we can taxi over.” There was no way to know if the controllers at San Juan airport would have power when we landed. We waited another forty-five minutes while the pilot located another satellite phone from a different Spirit flight. I couldn’t believe the airlines were so unprepared for this kind of emergency.

  Between the stress of the unexpected and the late-night packing and preparations, we were exhausted before the flight took off. But that didn’t stop us mapping out our plans. We talked about my nonprofit World Central Kitchen: about the current state of the food operations in Haiti that Nate had filmed, as well as my recent experience in Houston, post-Harvey, where I saw firsthand how food relief on the mainland was hampered by old ways of thinking and inefficiencies. We envisioned an island-wide operation in Puerto Rico that was far more ambitious. We needed a robust technology platform that could handle multiple food requests and manage our su
pplies. We needed to be able to track those requests and the deliveries, as well as manage the donations we hoped would arrive. I dreamed of a system where people could text a website with the food request: maybe a shelter needed four hundred meals, and the system would locate the nearest kitchen that could help cook those meals. It was going to be a localized approach, with World Central Kitchen as the clearinghouse with the best technology. We were dreaming big dreams because the desperation seemed so overwhelming. You should never feel guilty about feeling ambitious when you’re trying to help other people. If you don’t dream, then reality will never change.

  As our plane approached San Juan, there was devastation as far as the eye could see. Roofs were ripped off, with so many homes peeled open like tin cans. Trees were toppled for miles on end, or stripped of every single leaf. The trunks and limbs were so bare, Puerto Rico looked less like a tropical island and more like winter in my beloved home state of Maryland.

  I texted Ramón as soon as I landed. The phone signal didn’t seem to work, but some data was finding its way through. “We welcome you with open arms!!” he shot back, telling me to come directly to San Juan’s convention center, where the government was headquartered, before we toured a couple of kitchens.

  The airport was eerily quiet. There were no planes coming and going, no supply trucks busying themselves on the tarmac. Inside the terminal, there were no lights and no sounds. People seemed to be suffering in silence, without food or water. I immediately reached for my phone to tweet at my contacts, telling them to send food trucks to the airport.

  We had booked a car from Europcar but discovered their location was off-site. So we walked up to the Avis counter and hoped for the best. I was lucky. One of the Avis staff recognized me from my cooking show on Spanish TV. That helped me talk him into renting us a precious Jeep that could travel the messy roads.

  “If you need anything, come back and I’ll help out,” said my Avis friend.

  “If I run out of gas, I don’t think I can do that,” I replied, only half joking.

  As we drove out of the airport, it was clear that we needed the Jeep. The major roads were still strewn with dangerous debris: electric and telephone poles were lying where they had fallen, with their cables snaking alongside tree trunks and branches. Driving was a test of skill and nerves on an unpredictable obstacle course, in lanes that were suddenly blocked, and at intersections where there were no lights to control the traffic.

  We headed straight for the convention center and parked on the side of the building alongside the Homeland Security Jeeps. There was a side door propped open with TV cables leading to the satellite trucks outside. We walked right in, and headed for the second floor, where government officials were supposed to be working on disaster relief in the many meeting rooms. Nobody stopped to ask us what we were doing there.

  My friend Ramón Leal had told me about the biggest meeting, which was dealing with the most pressing issue: gasoline. We walked into the session and made ourselves at home. The room overlooked one of the halls that had been converted into a giant staging post for supplies, along with cots for officials to sleep in.

  In our meeting, a group of business leaders were doing what the private sector does so well: solving the market’s problems. Puerto Ricans were lining up for several hours every day to get a precious few gallons of gas for their cars, and clogging up the roads. The gas lines were the most visible sign of an economy that had ground to a halt. For the sake of individuals and businesses, these leaders needed to restore the fuel supply chain as rapidly as possible. Fortunately they had some of the island’s best logistical brains in the room, including Ramón Gonzalez Cordero from Empire Gas, executives from Puma Energy, and Alberto from Coca-Cola. If anyone knew about trucking needs, it was the head of Coca-Cola. There were officials from all the big government agencies, including the smart and quick-thinking U.S. Attorney in Puerto Rico, Rosa Emilia Rodriguez, and the island’s secretary of state, Luis Rivera Marín. They had three problems to solve: more tankers to distribute the gasoline to the gas stations, more electricity for the gas pumps, and more security at the gas stations to deal with the long lines. They needed around a thousand security personnel to protect the gas trucks and the stations, and the National Guard offered up seven hundred. There were stories of people going to the gas stations with guns, but like all these stories, nobody had seen any trouble or actual guns. Within forty-five minutes the group had figured out a plan and the discussion was effectively over.

  We moved on to another meeting about our real focus: food relief. There the contrast could not have been greater. Fuel for cars and trucks was a priority that attracted the best brains in business and government. But fuel for people seemed like a less urgent priority, as the meeting made clear. There was plenty of talk but not a lot of action. There were even people who wanted to take their photos with me and to stream interviews on Facebook Live. Thank goodness the Internet connection was too patchy to comply. I wasn’t interested in the publicity; I wanted to see food relief in action. After an hour of listening to empty words, I grew frustrated and walked out.

  We drove to the San Juan Coliseum, the city’s biggest indoor arena, which was normally used for concerts but had been transformed into another distribution center. I knew the arena had a big kitchen, but my experience in Houston was that it wasn’t easy to activate such kitchens, even when the public emergency was clear. We were told that the Coliseum, known as El Choli, was temporarily under the control of the first lady of Puerto Rico, the governor’s wife. The arena was struggling: there was no power supply other than a few generators. But the kitchen was ideal for what we needed, and I had to figure out how to open it.

  I met with Leila Santiago from the first lady’s office, but the news wasn’t good: we couldn’t use the Coliseum kitchen because it was being used to feed the 150 people manning the distribution center there. This was a kitchen that could feed tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans, but it was only helping 150 people. There was some talk about the kitchen operators changing contracts and being shut down during the transition. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t believe the lack of urgency and understanding. Surely someone understood how important food was? Kitchens were the biggest asset on the island, and the need to fire them up was obvious. This wasn’t the result of bad intentions: people wanted to help, but they had no experience. Yet there’s a world of difference between wanting to do good and knowing how to make it happen.

  Ramón Leal, from the restaurant association, promised to find me another kitchen, at some former government offices. Driving from the Coliseum to view it proved difficult: our route was entirely blocked by a tree that laid across the main road. When we finally arrived, we found the kitchen was a disaster. It was a small kitchen for a café, if I’m being generous. If I’m being honest, I’d say it was the back room of a basement underneath a kitchen. It had no power and no generator. I have more cooking firepower in the garage of my house than they had in there. Two inches of water covered the floor because everything had melted out of the freezers. It was disgusting and would have taken a week just to clean up.

  But this location did unlock one piece of intelligence for us: in a side room we found a huge supply of water bottles. We had been told there was not enough water on the island, but clearly there were supplies stashed away. Our challenge was to find those supplies, alongside a large working kitchen.

  It was only our first day on the ground and I was already frustrated. I felt like people weren’t taking the food crisis seriously or addressing it with any real sense of urgency. I was worried that Puerto Rico would just become another Houston: a natural disaster compounded by man-made politics.

  “Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s go to José Enrique to drink a rum sour.” I was anxious to be with a chef, in a restaurant, where people were dedicated to food and cooking. José Enrique had promised me a plate of bacalaítos, salt cod fritters, with mojo sauce and my mouth was watering already.

  The sun was
close to setting by the time we arrived at my favorite restaurant in San Juan. There was no power in the historic Santurce district, where José Enrique’s pink restaurant stands in what is normally a partying neighborhood of bars and restaurants tucked around a colonial-style market. La Placita, the market square, was quiet in the darkness, save for one giant advertising board that burned bright with its own power, promoting a concert that could never take place. I thought whoever was in charge of that illuminated billboard should be in charge of the whole electric grid on the island.

  José Enrique’s small generator was working as hard as it could, but we needed some extra light so we used the headlamps of our Jeep and some solar lamps. “Bienvenido,” he welcomed me, offering a big hug and a bigger smile. Over rum sours, José Enrique told me how Santurce was struggling through the crisis and how popular his sancocho was. The lines for the stew were huge and the restaurant ran out of soup early. More and more people were showing up as the word spread. He brought me a plate of some leftovers, and it was delicious. The generator ran out of diesel, the solar lamps faded, and we drained our phones by using their flashlights. It was dark in San Juan, but that plate of soup filled me with love and hope.

  This restaurant is a happy place for me. It’s where my daughters love to eat when we come to San Juan, and we ate here often when I was opening my restaurant at Dorado Beach. José Enrique is a great chef and his family is as big-hearted as he is. He can look serious with his close-shaved head and beard, but his big smile gives him away. In these crisis situations, you need to find your fort, the home base that is your place of strength. I knew José Enrique’s restaurant would be our fort.