DICKINSON – Rene Heredia, a scientist for Marathon Oil in Dickinson, felt helpless as he watched Hurricane Maria devastate his home island of Puerto Rico on Friday, Sept. 22.
“At the beginning I felt so helpless. Me and many friends in the continental U.S. were looking from far away with no communication at all.
Getting in touch with relatives and friends proved extremely difficult because the hurricane nearly wiped out the country’s electrical grid. Heredia eventually reached a friend in Puerto Rico’s capital of San Juan who traveled to Utuado and assured him that Heredia’s mother and other contacts in his hometown were okay.
Late last week, Heredia heard that the U.S. Postal Service was going to soon start delivering mail to places like Utuado, so he had an idea to send water filters to his hometown. As a professional in the field of environmental science and with childhood experiences in Boy Scouts, Heredia knew the water filters would be useful.