Hurricanes Irma and Maria aftermath

In 2017 there were weather problems in Puerto Rico that had affected the work. First, it was unusually hot summer, that impeded Jackson Lab to send us the transgenic animals in May 2017, because the regulations do not permit animal transportation in hot conditions. After that, two major hurricanes (Irma and Maria) struck us, and the delivery of animals was postponed until the December 2017, then the delivery service was partially restored. Thus, we got the workable colony of transgenic animals starting only on April 2018, with the delay of about 10 months from initial schedule. With only emergency power in the lab and no air conditioning; our confocal and electronic microscopes were damaged during the hurricane with flooding and aftermath electric disturbances and were repaired only in February 2018. We have lost all temperature-sensitive substances like antibodies, proteins and peptides, and tissue samples, because the freezers and refrigerators were without power as there were fuel shortages for the emergency generator.  Additionally, the postal delivery was not working properly, and additionally to standard Puerto Rico delivery delay there was no predictable service for 3 months, blocking possible reparations. Electric greed malfunction also led to the malfunction of other net services, Internet and telephone communications, and payment possibilities with electronic money (plastic cards, transactions). Lack of air conditioning in the laboratory for 6 months (here in Puerto Rico the average humidity is 75% and average annual temperature 79 F) damaged the precision IR optics used for patch-clamp, the micromanipulators, and produced unrepairable damage to the microscope excitation system and damaged camera sensor. One of the channels of patch-clamp equipment also died because of the humidity. This forced us to spent time to replace or repair the equipment, incurring in additional costs, but we still cannot restore it completely without additional time and funding.