![\"US-PUERTO](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fb90c36c4937a532df285519398eef4b93-pr-water-crisis-2.rsquare.w700.jpg\")
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\n A resident collects water from a tanker truck at a distribution point in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on August 6, 2026.
\n Photo: Ricardo ARDUENGO \/ AFP via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Cassandra Ramirez King had gone nearly two weeks without washing her hair when her neighborhood group chat lit up early in the morning: \u201cThe water is back! Hay un chorrito, aprovechen.\u201d Ramirez King, an engineer, immediately grabbed buckets to fill them with whatever small stream was trickling out of the faucets<\/a> of her home in Ocean Park, a beachfront community in San Juan, Puerto Rico<\/a>. Her neighborhood had been without water since August 1. With no cistern at home, she and her husband had been surviving on buying water and whatever they were able to grab when the city\u2019s emergency water trucks came through \u2014 sometimes running out of the house late at night to catch them. So as soon as her neighbors hit her up, Ramirez King rushed to take care of her hair and also did a couple of loads of laundry by pouring the buckets into her washing machine.<\/p>\n \u201cWe woke up today, on August 10, with water. We weren\u2019t supposed to. We\u2019re within the 48-hour rationing window. This situation is just a constant state of chaos,\u201d she says bitterly. \u201cWe have a water crisis, sure, but also a crisis of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramirez King is one of more than 180,000 Puerto Ricans across the cities of San Juan, Carolina, Juncos, Gurabo, Trujillo Alto, Can\u00f3vanas, and Lo\u00edza who are currently experiencing mandatory water shutoffs<\/a> every 48 hours, after Governor Jenniffer Gonz\u00e1lez-Col\u00f3n<\/a> declared an island-wide state of emergency on August 4. Not only was July the driest month on record for San Juan in more than 120 years, but nearly 25 percent of the U.S. colony is currently experiencing a severe drought, and another 36 percent is under moderate drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>. Gonz\u00e1lez-Col\u00f3n has requested the assistance of the federal government; on Monday, FEMA confirmed<\/a> it will be providing water trailers to support local efforts for up to 30 days. President Trump has yet to comment on the crisis. (The U.S. Virgin Islands, another American colony, is also experiencing extreme drought conditions and requested a federal disaster declaration<\/a> on Monday, though its plight has not caught as much attention as neighboring Puerto Rico.) It is unclear how long the rationing measures will be in place or whether they\u2019ll widen to include the rest of the island. But experts have warned<\/a> that drought conditions could extend into early 2027.<\/p>\n Dry taps have put Puerto Ricans, who already struggle with rolling blackouts<\/a> due to the island\u2019s unstable power grid, in an impossible position, according to people I\u2019ve spoken with over the past few days. One woman\u2019s husband has taken to bathing in the sea to conserve water for their children; she has also spotted local businesses setting out buckets to collect water dripping from their air-conditioning units. Another woman has been forced to go from store to store seeking bottled water, only to find the shelves routinely empty. A third one, who is 71 years old and lives alone, has been forced to climb her roof to refill her small cistern and is terrified she\u2019ll suffer a fatal fall.<\/p>\n Everyone is worried about what the water crisis may mean to vulnerable populations like the elderly and the ill. Experts have also warned<\/a> the lack of water constitutes a public health crisis, putting people at risk of gastrointestinal illnesses as well as diseases such as the Zika and dengue viruses. <\/strong>Routinely purchasing bottled water and constantly refilling cisterns are out of reach for many Boricuas, as more than 40 percent of the American colony<\/a> lives in poverty. Community group chats have become a lifeline, alerting neighbors of when an emergency water truck comes by or when a small trickle comes out of the faucet.<\/p>\n \n A woman washes her hair using water from a natural spring as residents collect water in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, on August 6, 2026. \u201cWe are helping each other while the government remains silent,\u201d says Ramirez King. She says she\u2019s frustrated by the conflicting directives from the administration or that it was seemingly unprepared for the drought, even though experts began warning of these conditions<\/a> earlier this year. For example, the president of the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority\u2019s board of directors quit his post<\/a> on August 6, saying the government didn\u2019t consult the water utility\u2019s board before implementing its rationing plan. And, as of August 8<\/a>, the Gonz\u00e1lez-Col\u00f3n administration had not called upon a scientific committee tasked by law with advising agencies on public policies to handle this kind of crisis.<\/p>\n The government, which has set up more than 50 distribution points<\/a> for water, <\/strong>has warned islanders to brace for a prolonged emergency situation, including extending the 48-hour rotating schedule to a 72-hour one. As of Tuesday, 13 reservoirs across the island reported<\/a> declining water levels. \u201cThis situation is out of our hands,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez-Col\u00f3n, a longtime politician<\/a> and pro-statehood Trump supporter<\/a>, said about the rationing measures last week. \u201cNothing prevents this from worsening.\u201d<\/p>\n But outraged Puerto Ricans say that\u2019s far from the full story.<\/p>\n For the past five years, Hilda Rodriguez has kept a tracker of days she has spent without water at her home in Monteflores, a community in San Juan\u2019s Santurce neighborhood. Monteflores, which sits about 75 feet above sea level, has struggled with occasional water issues for most of Rodriguez\u2019s life; her family first purchased a cistern as a backup plan in the 1990s. But since 2021, the situation has considerably worsened. That year her community went without water for 22 days. In 2022, it jumped to 136 days. In 2023, 100 days. In 2024, it went up again to 142 days. In 2025, 175 days. This year so far? An astonishing 193 days without water and only 30 days with. And, while it\u2019s true that unlike many other Boricuas, Rodriguez, a nonprofit executive director, is lucky enough to have a cistern, that\u2019s meant to help her only during emergencies \u2014 not daily life.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve regularly complained to the water utility\u2019s customer-service line. I\u2019ve contacted lawmakers. My neighbors and I have written letters to the editor. We even put up a banner across the street that read \u2018We Need Water,\u2019\u201d Rodriguez says. With a sigh, she adds, \u201cNo one has paid attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Carla L\u00f3pez de Az\u00faa, a mom of three, has been stocking up water in her home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Local experts say that, for years, the government has failed to update and fix<\/a> Puerto Rico\u2019s aging water infrastructure, just as with its crumbling power grid. A cursory look through PRASA\u2019s social-media accounts<\/a> shows announcements for potential service interruptions: On Tuesday alone, it showed alerts for at least 20 towns plus the seven cities in the metropolitan area currently under rationing measures. Most of the warnings were due to either failures of the power grid or leaks.<\/p>\n PRASA estimates<\/a> that every year it fixes between 50,000 and 55,000 of such leaks \u2014 known locally as salideros. However, the agency can\u2019t fully know how much water is lost through those. F\u00e9lix Aponte Ortiz, a water-management expert, estimates that up to 60 percent of the water in PRASA\u2019s systems doesn\u2019t make it to Boricua households. \u201cThere\u2019s an emphasis in producing more water and in rehabbing the big infrastructure, but not so much in updating pipes,\u201d he recently told the New York Times<\/a>. (Multiple calls to PRASA\u2019s press office went unanswered.) In June, there was a rupture in the supertubo \u2014 a 25-year-old major pipeline<\/a> \u2014 leaving tens of thousands in the San Juan area without water. While the rupture was eventually fixed, customers are still experiencing intermittent service and low pressure. Ramirez King was one of them. All in all, she spent 52 days without water<\/a> this summer before the current drought. \u201cIt\u2019s an atrocity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an exhausting way of living for Rodriguez too. Cooking is challenging and she often showers using buckets. She barely washes her car and certain areas of her house. Often, she needs to think about when she should flush the toilet. Rodriguez only does laundry once a week, but you can forget about her splitting her clothes by colors or even separating towels and bedsheets \u2014 everything goes together in the largest load possible. She\u2019s unable to clean or do routine maintenance on her cistern because she\u2019s afraid of emptying it and being unable to refill it again. And she\u2019s constantly in communication with her neighbors in case el cami\u00f3n cisterna swings by and she isn\u2019t home. \u201cThe other day one of the muchachos from the truck did the impossible,\u201d she says. \u201cHe connected three 50-feet hoses to be able to reach my house.\u201d The worst part is that, despite the literal lack of service, she still has to pay a water bill to PRASA every month.<\/p>\n To hear Gonz\u00e1lez-Col\u00f3n tell it, the people of Puerto Rico need to do more to mitigate the effects of the drought. \u201cWashing cars, hosing down driveways, watering plants, filling plastic pools, leaving hoses or faucets running \u2014 all of that limits our ability to maintain water availability in the metropolitan area. This is not a joke,\u201d she said<\/a> when she announced the rationing measures. The governor\u2019s scolding tone has infuriated Boricuas, especially as they say they\u2019ve spotted sprinklers watering private golf courses, hotels\u2019 greenery, and even the lawn of El Morro. So much for not wasting water.<\/p>\n Add that to the fact that her administration has made it harder<\/a> for community organizations to challenge development projects and that it recently approved<\/a> the construction of Proyecto Esencia<\/a>, a controversial $2 billion two-acre planned luxury community in the southwestern town of Cabo Rojo \u2014 which opponents warn could have<\/a> devastating environmental consequences, including impacting the availability of water for the town\u2019s residents. It all has made many Puerto Ricans feel like their elected officials care very little about the overlapping crisis they are facing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe clearly have an administration that has absolutely no empathy for what\u2019s going on and it\u2019s just completely overrun by incompetence and corruption,\u201d says Jossie Valent\u00edn, who runs the tour company Aventuras Yuiza<\/a> with her wife. \u201cThere\u2019s some real cognitive dissonance going on in terms of telling us, You need to go save water, but we\u2019re going to go approve a project like Esencia.\u201d<\/p>\n \n When Jossie Valent\u00edn went to her local Walmart store last week, she found the bottled water shelves empty. The San Juan resident says her entire life nowadays revolves around when and how to find water. The other day, Valent\u00edn picked up her 83-year-old aunt, who is also facing water rationing, and took her to a laundromat. Trips to the grocery store to find water often become multi-hour journeys because the shelves have been cleaned out. Living in a first-floor apartment, Valent\u00edn and her wife sometimes have a trickle of water while their neighbors don\u2019t, so on those occasions they\u2019ll have people over to replenish their containers. The couple\u2019s tour business has also taken a hit as visitors cancel their trips to Puerto Rico out of concern for the current shortage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe situation is draining people\u2019s minds, bodies, and bank accounts,\u201d Valent\u00edn says. \u201cThis is a humanitarian crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Puerto Ricans know a thing or two about living through extreme circumstances. For the past 15 years, Boricuas have faced a series of cascading fiscal<\/a>, political<\/a>, social<\/a>, and climate crises<\/a> that have completely reshaped life in the American colony. A lack of reliable access to water is yet another entry on the list of structural issues those who live on the island deal with on a daily basis, including political corruption<\/a>, a crumbling health-care system<\/a>, rolling blackouts, the decimation of public schools<\/a>, and the displacement of locals<\/a>. For Ramirez King, the Ocean Park resident, it\u2019s too much to ask of Puerto Ricans. \u201cI\u2019m tired of being resilient,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you something, however. I know exactly how I will vote in 2028.\u201d<\/p>\n Stay in touch.<\/p>\n The latest in style, self, culture, and power in your inbox.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/253b4929f7d74b2f47fe5112afe0e9e877-pr-water-crisis.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Ricardo ARDUENGO \/ AFP via Getty Images\n <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/23e797810e5343ccd137bcd10a88ee3b61-pr-water2.rvertical.w570.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Carla L\u00f3pez de Az\u00faa\n <\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1e65eeb547abb3f48f7bba04ce3d997ca9-pr-water.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
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\n Photo: Jossie Valent\u00edn\n <\/p>\n