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Article snippet: For the more than five million Puerto Ricans living on the United States mainland, it was bad enough to watch news reports on Wednesday of Hurricane Maria ripping through an island where relatives and friends lived. What made it worse was not knowing how their loved ones had fared. With the entire power grid knocked out and with more than 95 percent of wireless cell sites out of service, communication was all but impossible on Thursday, and an already emotional day became even harder for the Puerto Rican diaspora. “We’re all anxious, we’re all desperately seeking information and we’re all on call to help Puerto Rico and give it whatever it needs,” said David Galarza Santa, 48, a Brooklyn resident who said he had been unable to reach his family in the municipality of Florida, west of San Juan, since noon on Wednesday. Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said in a statement that the hurricane’s impact on the island’s communications infrastructure had been “catastrophic,” and that the commission was trying to help. Some services, like texting and a few internet messaging apps, were reported to be working, but not consistently. Mr. Galarza said he was optimistic that his family on the island, including his father and two older sisters, were doing well, in part because they had all hunkered down at his father’s sturdy cement house. He also noted that Puerto Ricans were old hands when it came to surviving devastating storms. Just two weeks ... Link to the full article to read more