Jehu Garcia is designing & explaining how to build DIY simple solar systems for Puerto Rico & other emergencies on Youtube:
$400 solar system
https://youtu.be/LI132cvpp2U
$500 solar system
https://youtu.be/m04CXhoQ2jU
Solar IS Civil Defense. Practical, affordable, and available off the shelf or DIY. It’s not only for such places as Puerto Rico, the American Virgin Islands, or the other hurricane affected islands in the Caribbean. Everybody should have enough solar electricity for a light, a phone or a radio, to charge batteries to be prepared for disaster and emergency, especially since the cost is now from a day’s to a week’s wages even for the poorest of the poor.
If people want to contribute to Puerto Rico’s efforts here are some of the other efforts on the ground that I’ve found:
Family, institution, and neighborhood scale:
Institution, neighborhood, and town scale:
The American Virgin Islands were also deeply affected by the recent hurricanes but get much, much less attention than Puerto Rico. US Virgin Islands Recovery (
https://www.usvirecovery.org) is one place you can go to find out more about the situation in St Croix, St Thomas, and St John.