{"id":265418,"date":"2026-08-14T17:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/265418\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:22:09","slug":"philadelphia-rally-raises-awareness-about-puerto-ricos-water-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/265418\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia rally raises awareness about Puerto Rico\u2019s water crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

More than 50 people gathered at Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday night to raise awareness about Puerto Rico\u2019s water crisis<\/a> and pressure federal officials to allocate resources to support the archipelago\u2019s residents.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need water to be able to live. We need water to be able to just have dignity, day-to-day quality of life. And so, those who are experiencing those shortages are suffering, and that is unacceptable,\u201d City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada told WHYY News. \u201cWe should not allow U.S. citizens to have to experience any type of humanitarian crisis.\u201d
\n\"PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada speaks at a rally at Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday, August 13, 2026, calling on federal elected officials to act amid Puerto Rico\u2019s water crisis. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

More than half a million Puerto Ricans are enduring days-long water shutoffs<\/a> due to drought and infrastructure issues.\n <\/p>\n

A coalition of local and statewide organizations and elected officials sent a letter to the region\u2019s congressional delegation Thursday night, asking them to push for a federal emergency declaration in Puerto Rico to release resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.\n<\/p>\n

The letter also asked federal officials to advocate for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to be deployed to fix Puerto Rico\u2019s aging water infrastructure, which currently leaks 60% of the water it contains, said Rafael \u00c1lvarez Febo, co-founder of the Puerto Rican Professionals Network and one of the rally organizers.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMeteorologists had talked about this for months and months and months, so the government of Puerto Rico did not plan accordingly for an impending drought that they knew would happen,\u201d \u00c1lvarez Febo said. \u201cWe have a perfect storm of government inefficiency and breakdown and climate change going on.\u201d
\n\"KrystalKrystal Rosa holds a sign reading \u201cWe cannot drink beach wooder,\u201d in English, and \u201cNo podemos beber agua de playa\u201d in Spanish, at a rally at Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday, August 13, 2026, calling on federal elected officials to act amid Puerto Rico\u2019s water crisis. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

The coalition is also asking federal officials to call for a congressional audit of the current plan to modernize Puerto Rico\u2019s water and electrical infrastructure, and push for completion of existing FEMA projects.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the first type of humanitarian crisis \u2026 that the island experiences, and so we\u2019re asking the federal government to act now, fix the infrastructure,\u201d Lozada said. \u201cRespond both, short-term as well as long-term, and figure out how we ensure quality of life for the residents of the island.\u2019\u201d
\n\"DozensDozens of people gathered at Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday, August 13, 2026, calling on federal elected officials to act amid Puerto Rico\u2019s water crisis. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

The coalition also sent a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, requesting that he deploy resources through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact and mobilize the state National Guard and other agencies, including the state Department of Health and PEMA, to provide additional support in Puerto Rico amid the crisis.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,51935,1471],"class_list":["post-265418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-puerto-ricans","tag-puerto-rico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}