Many in Puerto Rico still under tarps as storm threat looms

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Maria ripped away part of the steel roof from Carmen Lidia Torres Mercado's home in the Puerto Rican capital. Nine months later, she is still relying on a blue plastic tarp to protect her home, even with a new storm season already two weeks old.

Torres points out where rain seeps into the bedroom of her small house in a San Juan neighborhood known as Barriada Figueroa, where the narrow streets surged with floodwaters during the Sept. 20 storm. But the 60-year-old retiree says she has no money to fix it on her own and doesn't have the documents proving home ownership that she needs to qualify for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

http://www.startribune.com/many-in-puerto-rico-still-under-tarps-as-storm-threat-looms/485991992/