He also guided me through the framed pictures on the wall - massive crowds of people protesting open-pit mining (a pitched battle Casa Pueblo helped win) images from their forest school where they do outdoor education scenes from a protest in Washington, D.C., against a proposed gas pipeline through these mountains (another win). Overhead, an air-clearing downpour drummed down on those precious solar panels.Īrturo Massol-Deyá, a bearded biologist and president of Casa Pueblo’s board of directors, took me on a brief tour of the facility: the radio station, a solar-powered cinema opened since the storm, a butterfly garden, a store selling local crafts and their wildly popular brand of coffee. Wide open doors welcomed us, as well as freshly brewed organic coffee from the center’s own community-managed plantation.
But after driving up into the mountains and arriving at Casa Pueblo, the mood shifted instantly. The situation had felt unremittingly bleak, made worse by the stifling heat. Compounding these risks - and despite living adjacent to two of the island’s largest electricity plants - many still were living in the dark. Not only had their low-lying neighborhoods been inundated, but they also feared the storm had stirred up toxic materials from nearby fossil fuel-burning power plants and agricultural testing sites they could not hope to assess. It was particularly jarring because I had spent much of the day on the heavily industrialized southern coast, talking with people suffering some of the cruellest impacts of Hurricane Maria. Visiting Casa Pueblo on a recent trip to the island was something of a vertiginous experience - a bit like stepping through a portal into another world, a parallel Puerto Rico where everything worked and the mood brimmed with optimism. Twenty years after those panels were first installed, rooftop solar power didn’t look frivolous at all - in fact, it looked like the best hope for survival in a future sure to bring more Maria-sized weather shocks. Thanks also to those solar panels, Casa Pueblo’s radio station was able to continue broadcasting, making it the community’s sole source of information when downed power lines and cell towers had knocked out everything else. Most critically, Casa Pueblo became a kind of makeshift field hospital, its airy rooms crowded with elderly people who needed to plug in oxygen machines. It would be weeks before the Federal Emergency Management Agency or any other agency would arrive with significant aid, so people flocked to Casa Pueblo to collect food, water, tarps, and chainsaws - and draw on its priceless power supply to charge up their electronics. Which meant that in a sea of post-storm darkness, Casa Pueblo had the only sustained power for miles around.Īnd like moths to a flame, people from all over the hills of Adjuntas made their way to the warm and welcoming light.Īlready a community hub before the storm, the pink house rapidly transformed into a nerve center for self-organized relief efforts. Somehow, those panels (upgraded over the years) managed to survive Maria’s hurricane-force winds and falling debris. Twenty years ago, its founders, a family of scientists and engineers, installed solar panels on the center’s roof, a move that seemed rather hippy-dippy at the time. The pink house was Casa Pueblo, a community and ecology center with deep roots in this part of the island. It glowed like a beacon in the terrifying darkness. Just off the main square, a large, pink colonial-style house had light shining through every window.
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