美国国家公共电台 NPR--Puerto Rico's southern coastal communities may be some of the last to get power back

Puerto Rico's southern coastal¹ communities may be some of the last to get power back

Transcript²

Hurricane Fiona walloped all of Puerto Rico, but areas in the south were particularly hard hit. Unrelenting rain flooded out communities and swamped many neighborhoods.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We have a look now at some of the damage from Hurricane Fiona. NPR's Greg Allen is in Puerto Rico.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE³: Maunabo is a small community on Puerto Rico's southeast coast, nestled between the mountains and the beach. It's fairly isolated⁴. People here have to be self-sufficient. At a small service station in the center of town, more than a dozen people are waiting in line, gas cans in hand, to get fuel for their generators⁶. Some, like 77-year-old Roberto Valle, seem resigned to many more days like this.

ROBERTO VALLE: (Speaking Spanish).

ALLEN: "After Hurricane Maria five years ago," he says, "it was eight months until my power was restored. That was eight months of buying fuel for the generator⁵." Puerto Rico's governor, Pedro Pierluisi, while optimistic about the pace of the effort to repair the electrical grid⁷, cautioned that it will take longer to restore service for communities on the south coast, where many towers, poles and lines are down. In Maunabo, the mayor says the power company has said service to the town center should be back in one to three weeks. But in many of the municipality's rural areas, the wait will be longer. The town's also dealing⁸ with other issues following Hurricane Fiona. A few miles up a steep mountain road, work crews are using backhoes and dump trucks to repair a bridge that washed out in the storm.

EDDIE LEBRON: This neighborhood is Matuyas. It's, like, 60 families live around this neighborhood.

ALLEN: That's Eddie LeBron. He grew up in Matuyas. Many of his brothers and sisters still live there. It's just on the other side of a small, normally placid⁹ river. But on Sunday, when Fiona hit, Eddie's brother Orlando LeBron says heavy rains turned the river into a torrent¹⁰. He says he knew the bridge was in trouble.

ORLANDO LEBRON: We saw the growing river, and it would get dark and the sound of the river.

ALLEN: By the next morning, the road on either side of the bridge had been washed away. A local contractor¹¹ who has family in Matuyas quickly got to work, making temporary repairs that allow residents to get back into town. Maunabo's Mayor Angel Lafuente says this is the third time temporary repairs have been made to the bridge that Hurricane Maria destroyed in 2017.

ANGEL LAFUENTE: (Speaking Spanish).

ALLEN: He says a permanent replacement¹² bridge is in the plans, but FEMA and the federal government are still conducting hydrological studies. Lafuente says in Maunabo, like many other communities in Puerto Rico, local officials are still trying to assess the extent of the damage.

LAFUENTE: (Speaking Spanish).

ALLEN: He says, "There are still rural communities here that I haven't been able to reach to see how badly some of the villages have been damaged." In this small community, Matuyas, Orlando LeBron says despite the lack of power, he's never gotten a generator. He doesn't think he needs one.

There's no power?

O LEBRON: No power, no - we live with the sun up there. That's it. And if we want to take a shower, we got a river there. Yeah, we're lucky about that.

ALLEN: There's another challenge here, one resident says, one shared by other rural communities following Hurricane Fiona. Most young people have left these small towns. Many who live here are elderly and not up to the hard work of hurricane recovery.

Greg Allen, NPR News, Maunabo, Puerto Rico.

1 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

5 generator   

n.发电机，发生器

参考例句：

• All the while the giant generator poured out its power.巨大的发电机一刻不停地发出电力。
• This is an alternating current generator.这是一台交流发电机。

6 generators   

n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司

参考例句：

• The factory's emergency generators were used during the power cut. 工厂应急发电机在停电期间用上了。
• Power can be fed from wind generators into the electricity grid system. 电力可以从风力发电机流入输电网。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

8 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

9 placid   

adj.安静的，平和的

参考例句：

• He had been leading a placid life for the past eight years.八年来他一直过着平静的生活。
• You should be in a placid mood and have a heart-to- heart talk with her.你应该心平气和的好好和她谈谈心。

10 torrent   

n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发

参考例句：

• The torrent scoured a channel down the hillside. 急流沿着山坡冲出了一条沟。
• Her pent-up anger was released in a torrent of words.她压抑的愤怒以滔滔不绝的话爆发了出来。

11 contractor   

n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌

参考例句：

• The Tokyo contractor was asked to kick $ 6000 back as commission.那个东京的承包商被要求退还6000美元作为佣金。
• The style of house the contractor builds depends partly on the lay of the land.承包商所建房屋的式样，有几分要看地势而定。

12 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。