The logistics, economics, and politics of giving puerto rico back its future.
Fear hit Orlando Gonzalez only after the storm had already been battering his grandmother’s house for more than 12 hours. It wasn’t the wind or the rain. It was the voice of his father calling for his mother.
Evelyn!
The scream startled the whole family,coming from such an unflappable man. Everyone—Gonzalez, his mother, his younger sister, and his grandmother— raced into the room, where they found Orlando Sr. hanging by his hands from one of the wooden ceiling beams, his feet dangling. The wind was shaking the rafters and rippling the corrugated metal roof; he was straining to keep all of it from being stripped away by Hurricane Maria.
You’re crazy!
Let go!
His father insisted he could save the roof, and thereby save everything inside the house. Gonzalez ran to his father and threw his arms around his legs, trying to be his anchor.
Both of them were fighters. Orlando Sr. had put his son in a boxing ring when the boy was just 5, and for the next 16 years he oversaw his training regimen through 178 amateur bouts. Last year, Orlando Jr., 22, turned pro, incorporating a lifetime of paternal teachings to fulfill a family dream. Among the lessons that sank in the deepest were these: 1) Fortune often favors the smartest, not necessarily the strongest; 2) the smartest know their limitations.
Gonzalez is a featherweight, 126 pounds. His father, who’d fought as a flyweight, is even smaller. As the winds intensified, both father and son concluded this was a mismatch. So they shifted strategies. With the help of the others, they lashed together several belts, tying one end to the roof and the other to a dining table. It held for about five minutes. The belts snapped, and the roof disappeared with a shuddering whoosh.
This story is from the December 18, 2017 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek.
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This story is from the December 18, 2017 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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