Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox among 45 Utahns who delivered hope, food and power to Puerto Ricans

Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox says that with the help of fellow Utahns, he became something unexpected during a just-finished trip to help hurricane victims in Puerto Rico: the answer to prayers.

For example, he describes an elderly couple that just ran out of money for food and a gasoline-powered generator. The wife worried how to care for her bedridden husband in the heat without a fan as he suffered from infections and Parkinson’s disease.

As Utah volunteers knocked on her door to offer help, she told them, “I prayed last night and said, ‘God, please send us help. I don’t know what we’re going to do.’”

Cox said, “We brought one of the solar generators and set it up for her and her husband” and gave them some food and water. “They couldn’t stop thanking us. They were just in tears. It was pretty special.”

Cox — who speaks Spanish learned as a young Mormon missionary in Mexico — was among 45 volunteers from Utah who spent five days in Puerto Rico distributing goods donated from the Beehive State.

He said $700,000 has been raised so far through efforts led by “Light Up Puerto Rico,” organized by Utahns who are from Puerto Rico or served LDS missions there.

“I just want to thank Utahns for being so generous,” he said. “We had hundreds of pallets of solar-powered lights. Hundreds of pallets of bottled water, canned goods, food, hygiene kits, medical kits. We loaded two giant moving trucks every day and went out and distributed them in the hardest-hit parts of the country.”

He added, “And we still have a warehouse full of goods for the next volunteers who go down,” as more monthly trips are planned through June.

Cox said that even months after hurricanes, he’s surprised how bad conditions still are — and his initial impression was that the island looks like it had been bombed.

“It still looks like a war zone down there. There is destruction everywhere,” he said.

“Don’t forget about Puerto Ricans,” he said, adding that often happens soon after initial news cycles about disasters. “This is one that is going to be a problem for many, many months to come — if not years. They desperately need help.”

He said poor roads and electrical grid even before the hurricane hit has left most of the island still without power.

Even in the capital of San Juan, he said, “Ninety percent of stop lights don’t work… There are still power poles and wires lying everywhere. Homes are missing walls and roofs. What has been done is that tens of thousands of tarps have been placed on houses. But those are just temporary fixes, and it’s the monsoon season.”

He added that he was also disappointed that during his five days driving around the island, “We saw power crews working in only two areas” trying to restore electricity.

Cox said he wants Utahns to know that Puerto Ricans “are not helpless. They are very resilient, and they are working together.” He said he often saw people taking supplies they just received to “a neighbor because they thought they needed them even more.”

He said that beyond providing needed supplies, Utah is delivering hope to fellow Americans on the island.

“We went down there to deliver hope, that they hadn’t been forgotten,” Cox said. “But I came away more hopeful because I saw neighborhoods coming together. I saw people with nothing serving others.”

He said one man told him, “It’s been terrible for our country, but in a way the best things have happened. For the first time in 20 years, I know who all my neighbors are. We talk now. We work together. We’ve forgotten politics. We’ve forgotten the things that don’t matter. We’re helping each other survive, and we’re going to be OK.”

Cox said, “If people heading into the holiday season want to donate, please do. There are a lot of great charities out there. Tifie.org is the one we are using. None of the donations to it go to overhead. One hundred percent goes to relief efforts down there.”